How Did We Get Here
by MapleOwl
Summary: Hetalia Junior High AU- Lovino, Matthew, Arthur, Ludwig, Feliciano, Gilbert, Alfred, Francis, Kiku, and Antonio go to school together. However, there is something different about them. They each have deja vu moments, and dream about events that happened hundreds of years ago. Can they figure out how they're different, while still being able to deal with school and social issues?
1. Chapter 1

Lovino and Feliciano walked up to the doors of their new school with two completely different sets of thoughts in their minds. Feliciano was chattering on and on in that high pitched, squeaky voice that, once they realised that he was in fact a boy, girls always fawned over him for, because they said he sounded like a sweet little puppy, or whatever. Lovino, however, walked grimly, keeping his head down, and brown hair covering his face, bracing himself. He remembered all the stories he had read about how in junior high everyone did drugs and smoked and drank and how they would always bully you. Feliciano had also read those books, but he was the more optimistic one, and assured Lovino that this would be different, since it was a boarding school and they would be living there for the next nine months.

"Don't worry fratello~, this is supposed to be a great school, no one will bother us!" Feliciano sang, skipping excitedly, making his auburn hair and one out of place curl bounce wildly. Like anyone would want to bully Feli, but maybe there was? Neither of them had any experience with any of this. He was dragging his suitcase behind him, and was singing and laughing and acting like a cute eight year old.

Meanwhile, Lovino was skulking a few steps behind, glancing around and only focusing on anything specifically when a pretty girl passed, which, he noted bitterly, there really wasn't that many. He was about an inch taller than Feliciano, and a year older, but he hadn't ever been to real school, since he was homeschooled, until his grandfather got into his stupid head he should go to some high-end world-wide boarding school for rich snobs. He scowled at the glances other kids gave to the two brothers, one who looked like he was on cloud nine, the other like he was planning how to murder everyone in a hundred mile radius.

At the registration table an older kid sat there and smiled at them in a friendly way that sent a buzzing feeling up and down Lovino's spine. "Hola! I am Antonio Fernandez Carriedo, a freshman here! What are your names?"

"Hold up a moment, bastard. What the hell do you mean you're a freshman? Isn't this a junior high?" Lovino demanded, wondering why his grandfather left out that detail.

Antonio just smiled, not even fazed by Lovino's foul mouth, and laughed, bright green eyes shining. "Didn't you know? This is a boarding school that has seventh through twelfth grade! It would be a very small school if we didn't expand the age after all! So, what is your name?"

"L-lovino Vargas."

"Ahhh yes, here you are, Lovino Vargas. Here is your name tag, Lovi~"

The smaller Italian piped up, singing, "and I'm Feliciano Vargas!"

The Spanish boy seemed to notice Feliciano for the first time, which was unusual because he always stuck out more. "Oh, sí, you must be brothers, correct?"

"Isn't it fricking obvious?" Asked Lovino, who was seriously starting to wonder if this guy was just really stupid, even though, for some reason, Lovino couldn't take his eyes off of his tanned face. This guy looked...familiar. Lovino could've sworn he had known him from somewhere. But, that was very unlikely, that they would completely coincidentally get into the same school, that Lovino would recognise him, out of the many people he had seen in his life. It was pretty much impossible that he would meet Spain here of all places and recognise him, after all, he had just met- wait. Why had he just called Antonio "Spain"? He must just be going insane.

Antonio seemed to actually take the question on if it was obvious they were related seriously, and said, after a moment deep in thought, "yes, you have the same hair curl, though on different sides of your heads, and such, are you twins?"

"No, you idiot! I am a year older then this twelve year old baby!"

"So, you are only a year younger than me?"

"A-a-ahh, yes," Lovino stuttered, feeling very uncomfortable under the other boys cheerful gaze, and even more so because it felt so familiar.

Before anything else could happen, another guy came up, one with a hood pulled over his head and oversized sunglasses. "Antonio, vhat are you doing talking to zhese loser kids?" He said, in a really thick German accent.

"Hey! Who are you calling a loser, you freaking bastard!" Shrieked Lovino. "I'm out of here, come on, Feliciano!"

"Adios~ your class and room info is in that pamphlet~!" Sang Antonio, cheerfully.

"Stupid bastard," Lovino cursed under his breath, dragging Feliciano with him. But, even if he was an idiot, something about that guy made Lovino feel like blushing harder, though he was able to cover it with a deep scowl.

As he marched away, he decided to glance at the pamphlet to see who his roommate was. And then he glanced again. And again. Oh, hell no. That can't be right. What the hell?!

"What is it Lovi? What is your roommate's name?" Sang Feliciano, noticing that the only expression on Lovino's typically scowling face was actually shock. He looked completely stunned, and his hand went slack on Feliciano's wrist.

"A-Antonio Fernandez Carriedo," he whispered.

Feliciano smiled hugely and asked, "that nice guy back there?"

"No, dammit, another one," he said sarcastically. "Just shut it, bastard, who did you get?" And Lovino changed the subject quickly, and continued marching.

Feliciano's eyes lit up as he read his information.

"Ludwig Beil- something or other," then he looked mildly puzzled over something. "Why- what? I know that name from somewhere..."

"Whatever, idiot." And Lovino marched off to find his room with his younger brother trotting after. Of course. It was just Lovino's luck to get stuck with that hot, strangely familiar, bastard. Not that it meant anything. He was just acknowledging that the Spanish guy might, potentially, in some RANDOM person's opinion, be considered physically attractive. No, not Lovino's. And he was not blushing because he was thinking about him, it was because Feliciano was being an idiot. Don't even think that there might be another reason. He wasn't some love sick high school girl. He was a perfectly manly (and maybe slightly hormonal), thirteen year old boy.

* * *

Matthew and Alfred went to work exploring the school. Well, it was more like Alfred was dragging his cousin around the school while matthew complained that they should probably go find their rooms first. It was starting to hurt, being dragged by his wrist and being forced to nearly run. Finally, Alfred got tired of running around through crowded halls, and admitted defeat.

"So, we have different rooms, and I share mine with some guy named Gilbert, he is a freshman, so that's scary, and you share yours with an eighth grade kid named Arthur. Apparently, they don't mind you being in a room with someone older than you," Matthew said quietly, as he followed his cousin down the halls to where the rooms were.

"Okay, but listen, Mattie, if your roommate or anyone ever bugs you, remember, I will always save you, after all, I am the hero!" Declared Alfred, and Matthew just nodded, remembering how many times he had been bullied and made fun of for carrying around Kumajiro, his plush polar bear, because no one understood that that was his one reminder of his parents. Hell, even teachers mocked him for being a twelve year old and still inseparable from his stuffed animal. It had been fine until he was ten, because people just thought it was sort of cute for a little kid to have a stuffed animal, but once you hit double digits it becomes childish and immature. And girly. Matthew had been called girly and gay since a year or two ago. It didn't help that Mattew was sort of feminine looking, what with being slim and (there was no better way to describe it) curvy and only lightly muscled from casual hockey playing, and having large blue, almost purple, eyes. But, Alfred always was nice and tried to defend him from bullies, and helped him, even if it was murder to his popularity and led to some actual fights.

"Hey, look! This is my room!" Shouted Alfred, then he immediately shoved the door open and ran in, dancing around the room happily. Matthew sighed, but walked in because he was curious nonetheless. It didn't look too bad, the room was slightly larger then bedroom at home, and there was a bathroom that he would have to share, but it did look plenty nice. It did have a few things that was not like the room they had shared for years. It had a tv and a table pressed against the wall probably for working on and a mini fridge for some reason. Alfred was busily hanging up his posters on what Matthew guess he had claimed as his side of the room. There were sports posters, and a new assortment of anime and manga posters, which had recently become an obsession of both of theirs, marvel comic posters, sports posters, and video game posters.

Matthew walked over, and began helping him hang up Pokemon, Attack On Titan, Captain America, Iron Man, aliens, Deathnote, football (american), baseball, and minecraft posters. After all of that was finished, he spread out his US flag bedspread, and put away all his stuff. "Come on, now it's my turn," Matthew whined, eager to get to his room.

Alfred just glanced at him, suddenly looking kind of concerned. "Hey, Mattie, why isn't my roommate here yet? Do you think sometimes thing happened to him?"

The other boy rolled his eyes and responded, "fine, you can wait for him, and I'll go by myself to get my room set up."

After Alfred had thanked him way more than was necessary and Matthew politely said it was no problem, the smaller one walked off down the hall to his room. Matthew wondered what his roommate would be like. Apparently, his name was Gilbert Beilschmidt, and he was two years older than Matthew, which was really intimidating. Matthew decided that if he was a total jerk, he would just camp out in Alfred's room sometimes or something. Finally, he got to his new room, and pushed open the door.

Matthew was shocked, mostly because one half of the room looked like someone had lived there for years, though very clean, and the guy sitting on the bed had an iPod out that was blaring rock music, while he sat rocking out with an air guitar, a hood pulled over his head and oversized sunglasses on his pale face. Matthew slammed his hands over his ears and tried to politely ask, "are you Gilbert?" But Matthew guessed he couldn't here him, since he paused the music.

"Let me guess, you are here to buy some weed. Sorry, dude, not selling on the moving in day," he said, and laughed while Matthew stuttered desperately trying to tell the boy in the sunglasses that he was his roommate, and was pretty much panicking over the idea that the person he was living with for the next few months did drugs. "No reason to freak, kid. Don't worry, I don't take or sell those stupid drugs. West would have me thrown in jail, and it is not worth ruining my awesome future just for the sake of getting stoned. No, you gotta be Matthew Williams, my new sevie roommate. Hey, I saw you running around earlier, being dragged around by some kid in a bomber jacket. He your brother or something, Teddy Bear?"

"Wh-what do you mean, calling me Teddy Bear?" Matthew whispered.

He half smiled, more gently then before, and just said, "you look like one, plus you've got a polar bear in your arms. So, is the kid your brother? Or just some stupid bully that I need to straighten out for screwing with my sevie?" He said that completely seriously, so Matthew cleared up really fast that Alfred was his cousin who he had lived with for the past four years.

Then, Gilbert told Matthew to get his butt in there and unpack his stuff so they could "play truth or dare or some other girly crap to get to know each other", so Matthew went in and started unpacking my clothes. After a few minutes just watching him, Gilbert sighed and stood up, and started helping the twelve year old. He helped Matthew put pictures up on his wall, of scenes from Canada when his parents had decided to show Matthew the whole country when he was seven, of his family, of Matthew and Alfred, and put his few posters of books and anime up. Then Matthew spread out his red and white canada flag bedspread and put his books on the book case, and was finished.

"All right! We did it! Come on, let's go eat dinner and then we can do stereotypical sleep over things!" And with that Gilbert led Matthew out the room.


	2. Chapter 2

**A/N: here is the second chapter of How Did We Get Here. I forgot to say this last time, but I don't own the characters, they belong to Himaruya.**

Arthur walked coolly down the hallway, dragging his suitcase behind him. Taller students walked by, he was in the wrong hallway. Freshmen, he thought with a shudder. They both terrified and annoyed him. Especially that trio of idiots, especially especially Francis Bonnefoy.

"Bonjour, Mon ami. What are you doing in this hallway? I have heard you are staying with a little seventh grader." Speak of the devil.

"What do you want, you git?" He snapped, whirling on the taller kid and furrowing his thick eyebrows at the French boy who flaunted his shoulder length hair.

Francis laughed his weird French laugh that always grated on Arthur's ears. "Hononon~ Now, now, you should not look at me that way. It spoils what little looks you have got! Run along to your new little roommate! Au revoir!" And he marched away.

Arthur sighed. The stupid frog was right. He had to get to his room and unpack his stuff before dinner. Who was his roommate again? Oh, yes, it was a seventh grader named Alfred F Jones. Now to find his room.

He walked up and down the halls, until he finally found the correct room and walked in, surprised to see two kids sitting on bean bag chairs in front of the tv. "Ah, pardon me, is an Alfred F Jones here? I am supposed to be his roommate," Arthur asked. He just barely got the words out when he was smothered by one of the boys who was grabbing his shoulders so tightly that he could hardly breath. "Wha- get the hell off me you wanker!"

"I'm Alfred! Nice to meet you! I know we'll be best friends! Hey, wanna watch some Attack On Tittan with me and my friend, Kiku! He is my friend from where I live! He has been getting me into anime lately! It is so awesome!" Sang the boy hugging him, and Arthur looked over the boys shoulder to see a Japanese boy, Kiku, he guessed, who was even smaller than him, watching them both in amusement.

Alfred finally let go of him and Arthur unconsciously giving him a once over. He was a couple inches taller than Arthur, with golden blond hair that had one strand sticking up in the front, and shockingly large and innocent sky blue eyes behind a pair of glasses. He was cute, he thought, but then mentally slapped himself. Bad Arthur. Boys aren't cute. That would be weird. He was not Francis.

Arthur awkwardly held out his hand to Alfred, who resembled an excited puppy. "Hello, I am Arthur Kirkland, and I guess I am your new roommate."

Alfred took his hand and shook it enthusiastically, "Nice to meet you! Cool British accent, dude! So, want to watch Attack On Titan? Eren just turned into a titan and now he is fighting!"

"Er, no thank you, I should probably set up my stuff."

Alfred wrapped his arm around Arthur's shoulders and dragged him into the room. "Sure, no prob, I took that area, so you might want to set up in the other half, okay?"

Arthur shouted, "get the hell away from me, you git! Leave me alone!" And he ran out of the room as fast as he could, continuing to use profanity to yell at Alfred.

"Okay, dude, sorry! I won't touch you! Come on! Trust me, by the end of the year you'll love me!" And Arthur walked back in grumpily, and began setting out his stuff.

He turned around to see Kiku staring at him with a half smile. "What?"

Kiku just said, "so, you're a tsundere, correct?" Then he looked nervously back at the tv, looking suddenly shy.

"Um, excuse me?" What the hell did that mean?

However, Kiku just continued to watch the tv, where it looked like someone was being bitten in half. Weird.

Arthur continued working on setting things up, and he had just barely finished putting away his books and hanging up his Beatles posters when it was dinner time. Alfred hopped up, and grabbed Arthur's arm, talking about how he hoped the food would be good, and would there maybe be hamburgers, and if there were would they taste good.

Arthur just let himself be pulled along by the crazy American, and the Japanese boy trailed after them, as they marched down the hall. "I can't wait for you to meet my cousin!" Alfred sang, and Arthur's heart dropped at the idea of there being two Alfred F Jones's at this school. But, Alfred looked so excited, his sky blue eyes twinkling, that he couldn't help smiling slightly at the taller seventh grader.

"I'm looking forward to meeting him," he responded. And he found that he actually was sort of happy, because this year he would actually have someone to sit with for meals, and maybe, just maybe, if he didn't kill him first, Arthur could be friends with Alfred, even if he was a clueless wanker.

Just as these thoughts went through his head, Alfred made all thoughts of possible friendship disappear when he somehow tripped on the smooth floor, and he and Arthur went crashing on top of each other, while Kiku stopped and calmly took photos with his camera. Then Arthur chased Alfred down the hall, screaming at him, and Alfred ran away yelling "Sorry! Sorry!" To the angry British person behind him. So much for not killing him, Arthur thought.

* * *

Ludwig walked quietly down the halls, not having to swerve past the other students because many of them, he noted dryly, swerved away from him, probably intimidated by the tall and strong blond boy. He was looking for his room, feeling a bit lonely since Gilbert, his "Prussian" (he thought it sounded awesomer than German) brother had abandoned him awhile ago. He finally got to his room and marched in, clenching his suitcase in his strong hands.

There he saw, sitting on one of the beds, was a boy singing softly to himself and drawing, everything of his already set up, but still messy. There was a wall full of pictures of what Ludwig guessed was italy, his bed spread was an Italian flag, and his shelves were filled of cute animal models and art supplies and pasta boxes (?). Then he looked more closely at the boy. He looked cute and young and innocent, almost like a girl, and strangely familiar, he looked like someone Ludwig might've known as a kid. He had large, adorable brown eyes that sparkled, and he had auburn hair with one large curl sticking out of the side. The boy finally looked up, and broke into a huge smile, hopping up and hugging Ludwig tightly around his chest, because he was a good three inches shorter than the German. "Ve~ I'm Feliciano Vargas, but you can call me feli, if you want! You must be my new roommate, Ludwig! I am so glad to meet you! I have presents for you, and I hope we can stay friends forever~!" The boy, Feliciano, sang in an Italian accent. It startled Ludwig, to find someone so openly friendly to him, and he didn't even look very intimidated by him.

Feliciano ran over to a bag next to his bed, and brought out three neatly wrapped packages, then ran back to Ludwig and grinning ear to ear. "Here~. I got you three presents and I hope you like them! It is a homemade pasta for you, a painting that I made, and a camera, so you can take pictures of us together!" And while he explained what they were, Ludwig opened them, surprised at how beautiful the painting was, a picture of a hill and a road that looked vaguely familiar, and done in oil paint. The pasta, he carefully set aside, and the camera, he picked up and studied it, noting that it was a pretty nice camera, though it was decorated with stickers, which Ludwig assumed the Italian had added.

He looked up to thank Feliciano, when he realized that the smaller boy was staring at him in shock, like he had suddenly recognised him from somewhere. "Uhh... vhat is it?" He asked, as it seemed for a moment that Feliciano would start crying, for a reason he didn't understand.

"Y-y-you look like someone, but it can't be, so never mind~! Do you like the presents?" He asked, and the cloudiness on his face disappeared, replaced by a bright smile.

Ludwig held up the camera and said, "thank you, I love zhem. Vould you maybe like to take a picture, Feliciano? I vould like to have a picture of me with my first friend." And he blushed deeply as the boy leaped at him and hugged the breath out of him, clinging desperately. He didn't know why he had said that, it had just popped out of his mouth, but it was too late to back out, so he got out the camera and turned out on, then held it out and took a picture of him a Feliciano arm in arm, Ludwig blushing and with a nervous smile, and Feliciano smiling hugely.

"Ve~, it looks so good, Ludwig! But you shouldn't call me Feliciano, you should call me feli, and I will call you Luddy in return, sí? We will both have special nicknames! Now, hurry and unpack your stuff so we can eat dinner, I'm starving!" Feliciano sang, letting go of Ludwig and skipping over to his bed and laying down, immediately getting out a sketch pad and drawing, leaving the other to unpack his luggage.

Ludwig liked being organised, so he was able to work steadily for just a few minutes to get out the few belongings he had brought. Then, Feliciano put down his sketch pad and slid it under his bed, and had led him to the cafeteria, chattering on about everything and anything, until they finally reached the large room where the students ate. Students ate in two shifts, the first group to to were the seventh through ninth grade, and the second was tenth through twelfth, which, Ludwig assumed, was to both protect younger students from bullying and to prevent over crowded and loud areas. Smart.

"Hey, look, it is my brother, Lovino! Hey fratello~ can we sit with you?" Feliciano suddenly shouted and ran up to a boy that looked like him, but with brown instead of auburn hair, and his eyes were hazel, not brown, and he had an similar hair curl, just on the opposite side of his head. Sitting next to Feliciano's brother was a boy that Ludwig recognized as Antonio, his brothers close friend, and next to him was Francis, and next to him was Ludwig's brother wearing his hood up and sunglasses on, probably to freak out the new people, Gilbert, and then four boys that he didn't recognize, though he had a vague suspicion he had seen one wearing a bomber jacket running through the halls, dragging the one who looked very similar (he looked like he wasn't as active and smaller and spent less time outside, and had longer hair with a curl falling into his face, and a polar bear for some reason, but otherwise they could have been the same) after him.

Lovino (Feliciano had talked about his family) scowled and answered, "dammit bastard, why does it matter what I say? You'd sit here anyways, so why the hell not?" And, with that less than friendly invitation, Feliciano dragged Ludwig next to him at the large round table. As he sat down, Ludwig felt a weird deja vu feeling as he looked around at the other countr- no, kids, all talking and fighting and laughing.

After they had all left and got their food and came back, they decided to introduce themselves. The crazy boy with bright blue eyes volunteered and stood, shouting, "I'm Alfred F Jones, the most amazing hero ever! I am American, if you can't tell by my accent, and will one day save the world! I love comics and anime and sports and science, though just the exciting stuff, like archeology, and am in seventh grade!" Then he smiled and sat down, grinning hugely and looking at all of them through his glasses.

Then the boy next to him, a smaller boy with ridiculously thick eyebrows and glaring emerald eyes, stood up and said, calmly, "I am Arthur Kirkland, an eighth grader here, and I am from England. My favorite things are harry potter, the Beatles, fantasy in general, and reading and writing." Then he coolly sat down where Alfred wrapped his arm around his shoulder and started laughing and chattering.

Next Francis, "bonjour, I am Francis Bonnefoy, and I come from Paris. I believe deeply in l'amour, and that is all." And he smiled flirtatiously at Arthur, who scowled at the Frenchman, furrowing his oversized eyebrows. Then he sat down, and gestured at the boy with the polar bear to tell him to go.

"A-ah, I a-am Matthew Williams, a-and I'm in seventh grade and Alfred is my cousin, who I have lived with for the past four years, (and Ludwig could hardly hear him at this point) s-s-since my p-parents d-d-died." He fell silent for a moment, gave a small sigh, then continued, "oh, and I'm from Canada, and this is kunakiro, my polar bear." He held up the polar bear stuffed animal. Then he sat down.

Alfred laughed and said, "ha, Mattie, you forgot his name again. God, can't you remember, it's Kumajiro, how do you always forget that?"

While Matthew apologized repeatedly, and held Kumajiro all the closer, Gilbert stood up and said, "I'm Gilbert Beilschmidt, the awesome Prussian (Ludwig rolled his eyes while everyone else but Francis and Antonio looked confused), and I am a freshman, and West over there is my little bro, and I have a pet bird that I named gilibird after me. And..." and he whipped off his sunglasses and hood, "I am so awesome, I am albino!" And half the group jumped in surprise at the glittering red eyes, super pale skin, and shocking white hair. Then Gilbert started laughing at all of their expressions.


	3. Chapter 3

**A/N: and now the third chapter of How Did We Get Here! Now you get to learn more about Lovino and Matthew, and a little about Gilbert too. I hope you enjoy~.**

 **Remember that I do not own the characters, they belong to Himaruya.**

Lovino jumped in surprise when he saw Gilbert's red eyes, as hard and bright as rubies. They were terrifying. He had heard about albinos, he read about it in a book on genetics, but seeing one in real life was shocking.

"Kesesesese~," Gilbert started laughing at the surprised expressions and sat down, still laughing, as Antonio stood up, smiling brightly, and making Lovino have a strange fluttering feeling in his stomach when Antonio glanced at him for a moment, then smiled even wider at all the rest of the people at this table. How was there so many? I mean, this wasn't even the first day of school. That was the day after tomorrow, today had been moving day, and tomorrow was basically find-your-classes-and-screw-around day, and THEN, after two days at the damn place, they would finally start real school. And yet, there Lovino was, who enjoyed pissing off and avoiding people, sitting at a table with nine other guys.

While Lovino wondered about this, Antonio had started talking, his Spanish accent making Lovino listen, even if the bastard had already given him his whole autobiography, including his life in Spain and how he had gotten into world academy three years ago, when the school had been having it's year in Greece (the location changed every year, like how this year it so happened to be in England), how his family was in Spain, and about his strange obsession with tomatoes, for God's sake, the bastard loved them more than Lovino did (which was quite a lot). This was about what Antonio told the group at the table, but Lovino still listened to how his voice flowed, enjoying his slight Spanish lisp, until he mentally slapped himself. What was he thinking? He was a thirteen year old BOY. And yet he was watching this guy he had JUST FUCKING MET and was staring at him like some idiot lovesick girl.

Anyways, after Antonio finished talking, he sat back down and said to Lovino, "Lovi, it's your turn, go on, you can do it." How had he gotten that nickname anyways? Whatever. And so Lovino stood up, muttering cuss words at Antonio for making him do this.

"I'm Lovino Vargas, and that dumbass over there is my brother (gesture to Feliciano), who I am a year older than, so that puts me at eighth grade. The tomato bastard (this seemed like a good description for Antonio instead of something like "this sexy hot guy I fell in love with at first sight", and might lead to the wrong idea, because it was DEFINITLY not exactly true, damn it) is my roommate, and I've never been to a real school before, as I was homeschooled." Lovino glanced around once he finished, and saw that Antonio- ahem, the tomato bastard, was smiling so widely at Lovino and laughing gently at him. Damn, his eyes were beautiful and sparkling- nope, Lovino told himself. It's just crazy hormones. That's all. Nothing more.

He hurriedly sat down, blushing furiously, while Feli stood up and beamed sat the group, drawing smiles from all of them like the perfect angel that everyone knew he was. "Ve~ I am Feliciano Vargas, and as you know, Lovino is my big brother. We are both Italian, and I love pasta and drawing and cute things~."

Then the terrifying German next to Feli stood up and said, surprisingly quiet, "I am Ludwig Beilschmidt, Gilbert's two years younger brother, and Feliciano's roommate." And then sat down, while the quiet Japanese boy stood up and introduced himself.

"I am Kiku Honda. I enjoy anime and fanfiction and yaoi (Romano wondered what exactly THAT was, but didn't want to ask) and reading the mood of an environment and acting accordingry (his accent made most of his Ls sound like Rs). That is arr." Romano sighed. At least the last few were short.

Then they finally got to eating, and, surprisingly, the food didn't actually suck to badly for English food. Antonio- no tomato bastard, kept talking to him, and he just sort of sat there and listened, not used to being given any attention. That was Feli's job. Everyone loved him, his cute voice, his smile, everything about him, and even Lovino couldn't ever blame him for being excluded; it was other people's fault. Lovino never smiled for anyone, and the truly depressing thing was that Lovino sometimes had to try smiling in front of the mirror to make sure he still knew how. He only ever actually smiled on very rare occasions, maybe once or twice a week, which didn't sound like it was too infrequent, but how often do most people smile? At least once a day, probably once an hour, but Lovino only did it when he was totally off guard, normally with Feli (and no, smiling for pretty girls did not count, because that wasn't a natural smile). Nobody ever liked a grumpy teenager.

But still the tomato bastard talked to him. What was the guys deal? So, Lovino just had to sit and watch the bright green eyes and smiling tan face and curly brown hair sway as Antonio talked excitedly about everything. Finally, Antonio exhausted his supply of stories, and asked Lovino to describe HIS life. This didn't happen very often, so Lovino decided to relax, just a little, but still, and try his best to explain everything.

Lovino had been born and raised in Italy his whole life, though he had also been taught English at almost the same rate as Italian, which was the cause for him being able to speak it perfectly. He lived with his grandfather, who also taught them everything, except for when he had been forced into choosing a third language, for which Lovino decided to use just a computer program to learn Spanish, his chosen third language. So, technically he was multilingual, and could speak all three of the languages fluently.

He was raised by his grandfather because both his parents had disappeared shortly after Feliciano was born. He left out any details, he was uncomfortable opening up THAT much. Especially to Antonio. So, he skimmed over most details, and just said the basics on what his life was like, leaving out how bitter he was over how much everyone loved Feli.

After most students in the cafeteria had finished eating, a bell rang, telling the everyone to go back to their rooms. Lovino got up, without looking at Antonio, and walked away, weaving between students, most of whom towered over his head, and tried to find his way back to his room.

* * *

After everyone had finished with the evening's activities, Matthew was happy to slip into his oversized hockey shirt and pajama pants and just wanted to go to bed. However, Gilbert had other ideas.

"You really were serious when you said we would do girly sleepover things, eh?" said Matthew when Gilbert put Mean Girls into the flat screen and pulled chocolate and gummy candy out of his backpack.

Gilbert nodded, grinning. "Course. I've always said that this is zhe best way to get to know someone. After we vatch zhe movie, we will play truth or dare or something stupid like that. Sound good? Now shut up, I love zhis movie."

By the end, Matthew was practically asleep. So, Gilbert jumped on him, attacking him with his pillow. "Don't you dare fall asleep on me, Teddy Bear! We aren't done with zhe girly shit. So, get up, and zhen we can get to the learning about each other."

"Ugh," was all Matthew was able to say, mostly because he was being hit repeatedly with a pillow. He finally surrendered, getting up, and fixing the glasses balanced on his nose. "Fine, fine, just give me a moment."

After they had both gotten into more comfortable positions, Gilbert started talking, "So, I've thought about it, and I really don't think we should play truth or dare. We should just play truth or truth, so we can get to know each other better. So, truth or truth?"

Was he serious? Matthew clutched Kumajiro closer to his chest. "Um, truth?"

"Vell then, tell me vhy you have zhe polar bear? Be honest."

Okay. Tell the truth. "It reminds me of my parents," he admitted. "A bit before they died, we went on a trip around Canada, the place I lived before I moved in with my cousin, Alfred's family. I got some souvenirs, and some other stuff, but then, on my birthday, which happened to be about a couple days before we went home, they gave me Kuma. That was the last present I got from them before... Well, you know... And, after they... I just didn't want to ever stop having Kumajiro near me, in case he disappeared too. He is sort of my pet. And my best friend. Well, only friend, besides Alfred, which doesn't really count, he is my family. See, because of carrying Kumajiro, I didn't get many friends after third grade. Once I turned ten, no one thinks it's okay for me to have a stuffed animal. Along with me looking and acting sort of girly, kids bully me and call me a girl and stuff. That's pretty much it."

Gilbert looked shocked, and just sort of stared for a moment, before saying, "now it's your turn to ask me."

"Ah, okay, truth or truth?" Matthew asked, trying to push away the depressed feeling that always welled up in him when he thought about his parents. After all, he had let them in before, and that hadn't turned out well.

Gilbert seemed to recover himself, his scarlet eyes sparkling again, "Truth."

Matthew tried to think of a good question. "Do you like anybody?" What? Gilbert HAD said to be girly.

"Yeah. Zhere is zhis girl I have been friends with forever, even though for the majority of my childhood we both thought she vas a dude, but now she is actually acting like a girl and has a boyfriend, but I'm gonna get her someday. And, yeah, I love her. We are still best friends, but, Eliza won't ever really notice I like her until I actually go up and scream it in her face."

"Um, okay, that's cool. Now, you ask me a question."

They went back and forth, asking and answering questions until it was one in the morning and they decided to go to sleep. Matthew crawled into bed, exhausted. He cuddled Kumajiro closer to his chest, and then fell right asleep.

* * *

Canada walked out of the door to his apartment, and found a sea of tulips in front of him, all beautiful, and all filled with warmth, covering everything. "What is this?" Canada whispered, wondering if maybe it was just a dream.

Then he saw the Netherlands walking up, carrying a bouquet of orange tulips, then him holding them out.

He smiled at the taller country, feeling deeply confused. Then Netherlands held out his bouquet and said, "thank you, for everything you have done for me and my people. I hope you enjoy all the flowers."

And then Netherlands turned around, after Canada had taken hold of the flowers, and walked slowly away, while Canada smelled the flowers and watching his people rejoice over how beautiful they were.

* * *

He was younger now, much younger, and little Canada followed after big brother England, nervous and excited to meet his twin, America. What would he think of him? England smiled down at him, and held out his hand, offering it to Canada, who tentatively reached out and grasped his hand, trotting along him, his white dress like thing rustling as he walked. Finally, they reached a large beautiful house, and a little boy, who looked a lot like Canada, answered.

"England!" He shouted, and ran up to the older country, while england smiled and lifted him up, hugging him before setting him down, and gesturing to Canada.

"America, this is your twin brother."

And Canada opened his mouth to introduce himself, in the way he had spent hours practicing.

* * *

Canada was watching as many of his soldiers ran down the battlefield, guns shooting desperately at the opposing army shot back, plowing steadily through his troops.

Each time one of his men fell, Canada felt a mild stab of pain in his gut. He was losing. "We need to back off!" He shouted at the more important people of his army shot from behind a blockade.

"No, we cannot, sir!" Returned a general. But he didn't understand, they were going to lose. Canada could feel it, the way he could feel Kunamiro against him- wait! Where was he?

"Kumajiro! Kumajiro! Where are you!" and Canada saw Kumajiro wandering across the war zone, miraculously not getting hit. "Kumajiro! Come back!"

* * *

Matthew jerked upright, his head aching and drenched in sweat. The dreams had began well enough but...

What had he been dreaming? They had felt so real, almost like memories. But some of those events, he realized had happened long ago, and they couldn't be him. And the whole time, he had been... Canada? What was this? He had had dreams like that before, but for some reason they were so much more vivid than what he was used to.

He sighed, laying back into his pillows. He could still feel the distinct ache of the death of those men, which he felt had somehow been his fault. He held Kuma closer to him, feeling the familiar soft fur. Even though he had had him for years, he was always super careful to keep Kumajiro as new and clean as the day he had got him. And the bear never seemed to get worn or old, or stained or anything. Matthew had stopped questioning it at this point. God knows he had other things to worry about.

He rolled onto his side and checked the clock. Five AM. He should probably try to get more sleep. So, he closed his eyes and drifted off into an uneasy sleep, his head buried into Kumajiro's back, and arms wrapped prospectively around it. He knew that the war zone was from many years ago, but he subconsciously wanted to protect Kumajiro from wandering back onto that battlefield, because it was unlikely he wouldn't be hit if they ever went back.

 **A/N: The tulip thing is talking about how after World War 2 the Netherlands gave Canada a 'thank you' gift for helping them out. Canada received tens of thousands of tulips, and since then still receive several thousand a year. I'm sorry about any historical inaccuracies, but I tried to show it correctly.**


	4. Chapter 4

**A/N: fourth chapter~**

 **I'll talk more at the end, but real fast, in case you forgot, I don't own Hetalia, it belongs to Himaruya.**

Arthur woke with a groan when he felt Alfred start jumping in his bed. The idiot had kept him up past one, and then his sleep had been with uneasy dreams full of war, that he knew he could recognize if he tried, but he really didn't want to think about the horrifying fights he had seen. And now the wanker was waking him up at seven, even though they really didn't need to get up until eight, seeing they were expected to attend an assembly at nine before finding their classes and just wandering around.

"What the hell are you doing, you bloody wanker!" He shouted when he suddenly found the American's face an inch from him, staring at him with those bright eyes.

Alfred broke into an almost blinding grin, saying, "Come on Artie! We should get to breakfast extra early so that we can find Mattie and those other guys and explore! I want to see absolutely everything!"

"I went here before, asshat! And where did "Artie" come from anyways?!"

Alfred suddenly pouted, his face still just an inch from Arthur's, and looked almost heartbroken at the harsh words. Maybe they had been (slightly) uncalled for. "Oh, okay, if you don't want to, we don't have to. I am okay with whatever you want."

Arthur sighed, defeated. "Fine, we can explore. I actually heard they did some construction during the summer, so it might be a lot different."

"Yes! Artie thank you! Thank you thank you thank you!" And Alfred nuzzled up against him, hugging Arthur, much to his discomfort, since he was only wearing only a t-shirt and boxers, but he didn't struggle too much. He breathed in Alfred's scent. He smelled like new grass. It wasn't too bad, Arthur thought. Finally, Arthur started to get very uncomfortable, and shoved Alfred off the bed, telling him to go take a shower first. Alfred, just got up, still smiling, and ran over to where his clothes were set out, and walked into the bathroom, shutting the door behind him.

Arthur dragged himself out of bed and got out his clothes. The school, even though it was a boarding school, let them wear virtually anything they wanted, but Arthur decided to wear pretty much what he always did, a button up shirt, a pair of jeans, and black shoes. Actually, he normally wore dress pants, but that was just because his mum always made him. He liked dressing neatly, but not overly neatly. When Alfred came out of the bathroom ten minutes later, Arthur gagged on the smell. "What the hell is that smell?!" He gasped.

"I put on some body spray. Too much?" Alfred asked.

Arthur stared. "Did you fucking bath in it? Go, take another shower to get it out, go before I lose my sense of smell, you damn idoit!"

Alfred blushed for the first time and ran back into the bathroom. Then he came back out five minutes later without the immense smell. He was wearing a white t-shirt, that clung to him, even though he was skinny to begin with, blue jeans, tennis shoes, and a large bomber jacket, that was a little too big for the twelve year old.

Then Arthur ran into the bathroom and took his turn getting ready, and when he came out they were all set to go. It was only seven thirty, but they both headed down to breakfast, the halls nearly empty.

They ate breakfast reasonably quickly, and then Alfred grabbed Arthur's hand and dragged him up and down every single hall, and checking the classrooms on their schedules (they were, to Arthur's surprise, in the same science class, even if they were in different grades, but Alfred explained science was one of the few things he excelled at), right up until the assembly. Then, they made their way to the gym, where they sat in the bleachers and listened to the teachers talk about rules and and learning and sense of community and blah blah blah.

After the assembly they found the other people who Arthur and Alfred had eaten dinner with last night. Alfred freaked out when he noticed the plush that Kiku was holding. "Oh my god, is that a Vaporeon!"

Kiku smiled fully for the first time, looking very proud of himself. "Yes, Alfred-san. My parents sent me it for a good luck present."

"Dude, that is so cool! I am so jealous of you!"

Arthur rolled his eyes. "So, what have you guys been up to this morning?"

"Not much," Ludwig replied, shrugging.

Feliciano was clutching onto Ludwig's arm, and smiled at Alfred, "What did you guys do~?"

"We went exploring!" Alfred shouted, like they had been exploring a rainforest instead of a school.

Matthew tilted his head and asked in a whisper (Arthur was starting to notice that all he did was whisper), "But, Alfred, didn't we do that yesterday?"

Alfred suddenly looked slightly sheepish. "Yeah, well, um, Mattie, uh, we didn't go into any of the classrooms yesterday, and so I wanted to today!"

They all sat there for a moment, until Gilbert announced to them, "Let's just hang out all day! And you new guys can meet Eliza! She is my best friend and is almost as awesome as I am!"

They spent the rest of the day wandering around and meeting new people. Arthur had seen Elizabeta before, but he had never really talked to her, and she seemed nice, mocking Gilbert and being very kind to the rest of them, though she did look at him and Alfred a little strangely, and staring at Antonio and Lovino, and Ludwig and Feliciano the same way.

Her eyes lit up when she talked to Kiku, and got very excited when he mentioned that he wrote a lot of yaoi (Arthur still had no clue what that was, and figured he would ask Kiku at some point) and fanfiction, and got even more excited when she realized that he was actually one of her favorite writers. Then they sat off to the side together, looking at the camera Kiku had taken pictures of Arthur and Alfred with.

By the time Arthur got back to his room, he was definitely exhausted. He didn't even let Alfred talk to him. He was drifting off to sleep when heard a soft sob. He shifted around to look at the bed across the dark room. Alfred had almost literally crashed as soon as they entered the room. Now he was shifting around, crying quietly in his sleep.

Arthur silently slid out of his bed, and slinked across the room, looking down at the boy caught mid-nightmare. Alfred looked different without his glasses and the smile he wore almost as often. He looked older, more serious, and actually sort of handsome, but not as... cute. Tears were streaming down his face, and he was whispering, "I-I'm sorry, I didn't mean to. No, Japan, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm... It wasn't up to me, I didn't know, they didn't tell me, I didn't know that... Nagasaki, Hiroshima, I didn't mean to, I didn't want to hurt you... England told me... I'm so sorry... I will help you build back up... I'm sorry..."

Arthur stared at Alfred, he was whispering and twisting and sobbing. Arthur reached out and shook Alfred gently, trying to wake him up from his nightmares. "Alfred... Alfred... Wake up..."

Finally, the American eyes opened, tears streaming down his face and his clear eyes unusually cloudy. "England..." He gasped, "Please help me... Like when I was younger... I-I need..." and Alfred broke down, sobbing harder.

Arthur didn't even notice that Alfred had called him "England", he laid down next to him after a moment's hesitation, and wrapped his arms around the other boy, feeling the tears soak through his t-shirt. He understood, he had had dreams like this before too, though the night before the dreams had been so much more detailed and numerous than usual, filling him up with moments that were like memories that he didn't recognize.

Alfred's arms wrapped around him, his face still buried in his shirt, and, arm in arm with the taller boy, Arthur fell asleep, exhausted.

* * *

Ludwig woke up on the first official day of school in a panic. His dreams had been horrible the past two nights, and he decided to simply chalk it up to homesickness. He knew Feliciano felt the same way, mostly because the small Italian slept in his bed. Which was awkward, because said Italian slept in nothing but boxers, and even those Ludwig had to convince him to wear. And Feliciano was the type of person who clung to you in his sleep. But he didn't push him away, because in the middle of the night when Ludwig would jolt awake, he would turn over to see Feli crying out in his sleep. So, he let the small boy hug him.

Anyways, Ludwig woke up in a panic, because of these dreams. He felt scared, and there was a pressure on his chest. Then he opened his eyes and realised that the pressure on his chest wasn't from fear or pain. It was Feliciano, laying on top of him and making Ludwig very uncomfortable, with only one layer of shirt fabric between their chests. Feli smiled down at him, resting his chin on Ludwig's shirt. "Good morning~ how are you?"

Ludwig still was very uncomfortable with how much physical contact he had with Feliciano, who always wanted to either hug him or hold his hand. "Errr... good." And he laid there, just staring into the beautiful brown eyes.

Feliciano grinned, "well, that is good! Now, come on, we have to get ready for school!"

Ludwig carefully and steadily got ready, finishing up several minutes before breakfast, when he finished slicking back his blond hair. Then he walked to breakfast with Feliciano, who wouldn't stop singing and talking.

After breakfast, Ludwig carried his booking to his first class, surprised to find out that all of his friends that were in seventh grade with him were also in this class. Feliciano and Alfred and what was his name again? Anyways, apparently they had most classes together, though he was rather annoyed by the American...

The first few classes blazed by, up until he got to his English class. Ludwig was surprised to see Kiku there, after all, this was a seventh grade class... Kiku walked up to him, saying politely, "May I prease sit with you? I needed to take this class as my engrish is still not very good."

Ludwig nodded and Kiku sat next to him a Feliciano, who smiled widely at the Japanese boy. "Ve~ hello Kiku! I am so happy you're in this class! This means that if something happens and Luddy can't come, then I won't be all alone! Isn't that great? I hope nothing happens so that Luddy can't come, but just in case~."

Fortunately, the bell rang, so Feli would have to stop talking. The teacher walked up, and right away began talking. "Hello, students, welcome to your seventh grade english class. And, you might be wondering, considering this is a boarding school for students from all over, why we are learning about english. Any guesses?"

Ludwig raised his hand and said, "It is because english is zhe language used most often for business, and zhe most people know it."

"Very good. So, if anyone has any issues with this class, you may go speak with the principal. Now, this class will teach you to write your best, mostly by doing research projects and writing prompts. This brings me to your first assignment, which will take several months to fulfill."

A groans filled the room at that statement, everyone except for Ludwig (who enjoyed work), Kiku (who was too polite), and Feli (who was excited for his first real school assignment). The teacher raised an eyebrow, and glanced around the room. "Now, it won't be as bad as you think. I know this sounds stupid, but we will be keeping a dream journal. Every morning, the moment you wake up, write down whatever you dreamed about that night in at least five sentences. This will give you practice writing, and, at the end of it, we will be able to compare dreams. I know that many of you won't remember the dream you had last night now, but for the rest of class we will be writing down our dream."

Then, the teacher passed out the notebooks they would be writing in, and they set to work.

Ludwig racked his brain to remember. He could only remember brief images: training with two other people, watching a group of people all in tatters march down a street while people watched and through dirt and garbage at them, and walking through a forest and seeing a crate labeled "tomatoes". He started writing.

After Ludwig was finished he carefully read the paragraph over and checked that he hadn't misspelled anything. Once he was sure of that, he closed the notebook and glanced at Feli.

Feliciano's face was, for once, serious. He was writing quickly, and when Ludwig looked at the paper realised it was half full of Feli's loopy handwriting. His face was serious, but his eyes were shining with emotion, and Ludwig thought he saw the beginnings of tears in the corner of eyes. Ludwig decided not to ask what his dream had been about, and instead turned the other way and look at Kiku.

Kiku's face did not have anywhere near as much emotion as Feliciano's, but he still had a look of mild concentration as he wrote, and finally, when he was finished, he set down his pencil with a brief sigh.

After a few more minutes, it was time to go to the next class, and Ludwig slid notebook into his bag, and got up and was walking out the door when he realized Feli was not next to him, and turned around to wait for him, surprised to see him still writing.

 **A/N: So, we have some cute UsUk going on, and then some serious nightmare issues (I think that Alfred would probably feel really bad about dropping the atomic bombs, since I feel bad about it, and I wasn't even around then). I personally think that Feli's dreams would be worse than the rest, mostly because his life kind of sucks, which is also my reasoning for him being so happy all the time, because he wants to try and block it out. Also, quick question, I don't know who Mattie and Francis will end up with (I do not want them to be together, it just seems so weird to me) Mattie could maybe end up with Gil, but then there wouldn't be PruHun, or maybe with Ukraine, and Francis could possibly be with Seychelles or something? I would like some suggestions, please.**

 **Another thing I would like people's opinions on who else's point of view I could have at some point, and also if there are any historic events that are dream-worthy for a country. So, just tell me and I will try to use it. Thanks!**


	5. Chapter 5

**A/N: I don't own Hetalia, because if I did all my ships would be Canon.**

Lovino sighed as he walked down the empty hallways, knowing that any minute a bell would ring and signal lunch, and then the halls would be filled with students. Today hadn't started off the best.

The first couple classes were okay, and, depending on who was in it, he sat with Arthur (that guy's eyebrows were so damn large, but Lovino had known not to bring that up) or Kiku (he still needed to find out what yaoi was, it was still bugging him, especially after yesterday when that Elizabeta said she was into it too). Then it had finally been the class before lunch, which he was looking forward to, since it was an Instrumental Music class and Lovino was pretty damn good at the piano. He had ran down there, separating from Arthur and Kiku, who had science and english. Once he had got to the music room he was amazed to find it large and spacious, with instruments lining the walls and about fifteen other kids there. "Oh, Lovi, I didn't know you were taking Instrumental Music! It is so nice to see you~."

Damn it damn it damn it damn it damn it damn it. Lovino had been seriously irked to learn that the tomato bastard was in this class. It was hard enough, having him stay in the same room as Antonio, but this... Obviously fate was enjoying screwing with his life. Before he had been able to respond (probably involving a lot of cussing and shouting) it was time for the class to start, and the three music teachers walked up to the front of the room, introduced themselves and explained the goal of this class. "This isn't like the band and orchestra you had the option of taking, this class is basically where you have free reign to practice on whatever instrument is available to you. However, this isn't a class where you don't do anything, because at the end of each quarter we expect you to present a piece to us and we will grade you on how well you've done. You can work together, and we expect you freshmen to help out the seventh graders if they need it. That's all, so go and find your instrument. This does not have to be your instrument for the whole year, but we do want you to figure out your instrument in the next week. Now, go for it!"

And Lovino had rushed to the one piano, but had been angry to see that a boy with black hair and glasses had already sat down. "Hey! I want to use the piano, back the hell off!" Lovino had shouted, frustrated that he wasn't able to play it.

The boy had glanced up at him, staring appraising and making Lovino uncomfortable. "I'm sorry, but I got here first, so I get to play," he had answered in an Austrian accent.

Lovino had been about to start shouting some more, but had suddenly felt a hand grabbing his arm and dragging him away. He had spun around to see the tomato bastard walking purposefully to where Gilbert was playing a flute. Once he had reached Gilbert, Antonio had said, "Come on Lovi, it is hopeless to make Roderich give up his beloved piano. Why don't you play the guitar with me, I can teach you! It will be fun~." And he had smiled brightly, and Lovino decided that he would do it, just because he needed an instrument, and don't even begin to think it was because he had cared about the tomato bastard's fucking feelings.

He had still been very angry, and so had slipped out of the room a few minutes early, just so he would maybe have time to cool off.

And now he was walking down the hall just as the bell rang, and suddenly the halls were flooded with other students and Lovino rushed through the crowds, racing to get to the cafeteria. He ran through the lunch lines, and sat at the usual table that his friends (for lack of a better word) sat at. Lovino's finger tips hurt from holding down stupid guitar strings. He sighed and started eating, waiting for anybody to come up. Finally, Kiku walked up with a taller boy who had brown hair that fell around his shoulders and green eyes. "Herro, Lovino. This is my roommate Heracles Karpusi. I asked him if he would rike sitting with us, and he agreed to."

Lovino gave Heracles an scanning look, noting that for some reason the boy was wearing a shirt with cats on the front, that his bag had another cat on it, and finally that there was a pair of cat ears hanging out of the pocket of his jeans. "Ahhh... okay... but, real fast, what is with all the damn cats?"

The Greek (Lovino assumed) boy just looked at him, and said in a quiet, slow voice, "I like cats... is there something wrong with that?"

Lovino sighed, not knowing how to respond to that question. More of his friends came up, and the tomato bastard sat down next to him and wrapped his arm around his waist, making Lovino blush furiously. Why did he have to know all these crazy people?

* * *

Matthew had enjoyed the first day of school. Sure, his teachers asked who he was three times in each class, but he had avoided being bullied yet, which was something, right? He had carried around Kumajiro the whole day, and he hadn't even gotten many strange looks. He guessed it was probably because there were some kids who had and looked equally strange, for example Heracles with his cat obsession, an Icelandic boy named Emil who had a puffin stuffed animal, Gilbert with Gilibird who for some reason sat on his head in all classes, a Chinese sophomore or junior he saw had a panda in his backpack, another Chinese (but for some reason had a sort of English accent) seventh grade boy who carried a panda stuffed animal like Matthew, a Finnish eighth and Swedish ninth grader who were taking care of a white puppy that the eighth grader carried around and babied (from what Matthew could see this guy was even more girlish than him), and a Polish boy who wore a pink dress and had painted his fingernails and everything.

And then there was him, a boy who could easily be made a target for looking feminine, because he was so thin and pale and "delicate", dressed in a red sweatshirt and jeans, who carried around a large polar bear stuffed animal. Matthew was sure he would be targeted at some point, as soon as his classmates noticed his existence. There had been a few people, the Finnish boy, Tino, and a nice Ukrainian girl, who was pretty, but seemed awkward and shy because she felt uncomfortable with how big her... er..."bust" was, and then of course Alfred stuck to him like glue, and Gilbert chattered on and on to him, and Francis who seemed to enjoy flirting with him and making him uncomfortable, though at the end of that uncomfortable moment, Francis explained that he had a girlfriend that was supposed to go here, but had cancer or something. He said that she was to sick to come to school, so had remained back in France, but would probably visit over winter break, and then he could introduce them all to her.

Anyways, good first day of school. Alfred was really nice and overprotective as usual, and sat with him and talked to Matthew so he wouldn't feel lonely when he was all by himself, so he wasn't alone even when everyone else was ignoring him.

Overall, it had been a good day for Matthew. Sure, Feliciano had accidentally called him Mark instead of Matthew, but Ludwig had quickly corrected him. And after dinner they had gone outside and played soccer, which was intense, because even if the Vargas brothers and Arthur were not very athletic looking, they were crazy good at soccer, and of course Ludwig, Alfred, and Gilbert were really good. Matthew sat on the sidelines and cheered with Francis and Antonio, while Kiku and the cat guy, Heracles, watched quietly, though that might be because Heracles was sleeping with his head on Kiku's shoulder. After awhile, Elizabeta also joined in, and, to be honest, she was better than all of the boys, weaving in and out and scoring five times in a row. Finally the opposing team got tired of being crushed, and they all decided to go in, there excuse being that it was nine and that they had some stuff to do (which Matthew knew was an absolute lie, but he didn't bother trying to speak up).

After he got to his room, Matthew took a shower and put on his pajamas, and was surprised to find Gilbert just barely walking through the door. "Where were you?"

"I had to talk to West about something," Gilbert responded. Matthew decided to not press on what they were talking about, since Gilbert was looking very uncomfortable. Instead Matthew turned on the tv and pulled out a set of DVDs.

"Want to watch Friends? I have every season."

Gilbert nodded and then said, "Just give me a moment to change into my awesome pajamas." The "awesome pajamas" were what happened to be a shirt with a cartoon version of Gilibird, and his pajama pants had a collection of cute animals scattered around them.

Anyways, after Gilbert changed he sat down next to Matthew, who was wrapped up in a blanket. Then they decided to start the show from the beginning. They only watched three episodes, before deciding that maybe they should go to bed. "After all, we have all school year to watch it, eh?" Matthew said when Gilbert wanted to keep watching.

Matthew decided to read for awhile, possibly some of those books Alfred had been shoving onto him, so stayed up even later. Finally, when his eyes started getting heavy, he pulled off his glasses and set them off ito the side, along with the book. Then, he drifted off to sleep.

A few hours later, Matthew woke up in a shock. His dreams had been horrible lately. He glanced around the dark room, and saw that Gilbert also didn't seem to be having a very good night, judging from his shaking. At least he wasn't alone. Matthew reached out and shoved his glasses onto his face, and then picked up the notebook he had been given to keep track of his dreams. Might as well write in it before he forgot what the dream had been like.

He had been... fighting... it was... a long time ago... And he was fighting his brother... because he had left... And he was being led around by England... and...

Matthew sighed, rubbing his head and carefully avoiding his curl. He really couldn't remember that much. Oh well, it was very late, and he would probably dream some more at some point, might as well do it in the morning. And Matthew slumped back, barely pulling off his glasses before falling back asleep, dreams washing over him like a tidal wave.

 **A/N: So, we now have... Greece! And I intend to make there be Giripan!**

 **Anyways, I'm not going to be able to post a new chapter for about six or seven days, since I'm going to be camping, and there is no WiFi. I'm sorry! :(**

 **Also sorry that this was shorter than normal, but I've been sort of busy.**

 **And I decided to give Francis a girlfriend... guess who she is!**

 **Finally, please tell me if you want any new POVs, and I will try to put them in! I'm so happy people are actually reading this, so thank you! Please review!**


	6. Chapter 6

**A/N: Hi! I'm back~**

 **Oh, and if you happened to forget, I do NOT own Hetalia.**

Arthur rested his head on his hand, sighing and wishing that he had been able to get more sleep lately. The past few weeks had been, well, stressful. His sleep had been getting worse. Every time he looked at his friends Arthur saw blinding images of them, but older, and talking and fighting and (on a few occasions) laughing.

It was the worst with Alfred. Every time Arthur looked at him he would feel as though he was being drenched in cold rain, and always would start almost crying, and almost wanted to scream. This was sad because the younger boy always tried so hard to be nice to him, and Arthur always had to cover up being sad by being especially thorny or rude, though it was so hard sometimes, since honestly Alfred was his closest friend.

And then the rest of his friends seemed equally confused, zoning off in class ignoring what teachers were saying, even some people he didn't know especially well. Once, when Kiku was only agreeing with Alfred (he was very loyal to him, even if they were complete opposites), a seventh grade Swiss boy, Vash Zwingli, said, "Dammit, Japan! Speak your own mind for once!"

And, after the teacher got angry at him for cursing, he suddenly asked, "And why did you call Kiku 'Japan'? Are you now calling people based on nationality?"

This surprised most of the students; who hadn't even noticed. Kiku seemed deep in thought, with his eyes fogged slightly, and Vash just shrugged and looked slightly nervous.

A few times that happened, actually. It just somehow felt natural for them to call each other by their home countries. And nicknames based on those countries. Kiku had told Feliciano the Japanese word for Germany, and so now he was constantly calling to Ludwig "Doitsu~ can you help me? This cat just stole my homework!"

Honestly, it was pretty annoying for Arthur when he was both dealing with headaches, and everyone's confusion, and school work. He was just nodding off when an especially loud racket came from down the hall. He opened his eyes and glanced around, becoming much more awake when he noticed who it was running down the hallway at a billion kilometers per hour. It was Feliciano dragging Ludwig with him and a very angry Lovino at their heels, shouting, and Antonio trotting after them, trying to calm down Lovino.

Arthur stood up from his seat at their lunch table to see what happened, Alfred jumping up next to him. They waited a minute for the group of boys to come to a stop and catch their breath before asking at the exact same time, "What happened?!"

Lovino recovered from the sprint first and said, "I was going to ask my brother something, when I saw Kiku looking around a corner and holding a camera. I asked him what the hell he was doing, looking like a fucking stalker. Then he turned around and walked off, not answering my question. I wanted to see what was such a big deal, so I walked around the corner to see my idiot brother being face raped by the potato bastard, and I got angry and yelled at him to get his shitty face away from my brother's."

"Ummm..." Alfred said, looking seriously confused, "face raped?"

Feliciano decided this was a good time to cut in. "Ve~, please fratello! We were only kissing, and I started it! Please don't be angry~."

"Face raped is kissing?" Alfred muttered, laughing slightly.

Arthur didn't find it so funny, and did a mental double take. "Since when were you two dating?!"

Ludwig blushed slightly, which looked odd on the tall, normally emotionless looking, boy, "Ummm... We wanted to just keep it a secret for awhile... We have been sort of dating for about two weeks."

Lovino gagged, and would have probably attacked Ludwig if Antonio wasn't holding him back, "But school has only been going on for a month and a half! You hardly know each other!"

Antonio laughed and said, "Si, Lovi, but I think that they really do like each other, and I think that is good enough, you know?"

Lovino's face darkened for some reason, and covered it up by shouting, "But what about what people will think about you!"

"Lovi!" and Antonio suddenly sounded serious, "That really shouldn't matter if they really actually love each other."

"Who the hell was talking about love!" Lovino shrieked.

Gilbert, Francis, and Matthew chose that interesting moment to walk into the cafeteria, talking (well, at least Francis and Gilbert were) with the Polish boy, Feliks, and the Lithuanian, Toris.

"Did someone mention amour? Ah, has Lovino finally confessed?" Francis asked, suddenly looking very interested.

Lovino blushed, and Arthur wondered what they were talking about. Was he missing something here?

Lovino shouted, "I fucking hate all of you!" And stomped out of the cafeteria.

"Like, what is his problem?" Feliks asked, checking his manicured nails.

Antonio dashed after Lovino, leaving the rest to explain to the newcomers.

"Congratulations!" Said Toris, nodding his head at the newly found out pair.

Gilbert grinned at Ludwig and said, "Kesesesese~ I knew something must have happened! I saw Eliza and Kiku off in a corner and Eliza had a serious nosebleed over some photos they were looking at. So, you and Feliciano, making out in corners, huh?"

Feliciano and Ludwig both turned bright red and started sputtering, and Arthur smiled to himself. He looked over at Alfred who smiled back, and he felt pretty happy for Feliciano and Ludwig, and also a bit jealous. Then again, who would ever actually look at him seriously, and look past his prickliness?

* * *

Ludwig had been shocked when Feli asked him if he would like to be a couple. It was his first time to have actually been asked out by somebody. He had been asked in an interesting way. Well, not really asked, more like, well... To start off, the story to Romano had been a complete and total lie.

Feli had been jabbering on about pasta when he suddenly stopped and looked up at the German. "Ve~ Doitsu, what is wrong?" The Italian had been calling him Doitsu ever since Kiku had told Feli it was the Japanese word for Germany, where Ludwig was from. Ludwig had been staring at him, trying to figure out his confused memories, filled with things that he didn't actually remember happening. Mostly, they were of Feliciano, but he was older, maybe twenty, and he would jump around, singing for Ludwig and cuddling him, and waking up next to him. He had started to wonder if maybe these were just fantasies, but some of them were so real and not necessarily good enough to be fantasies of what he wanted.

So, he had been staring at Feliciano, probably in a weird way, and Feliciano had noticed this. "What is it Luddy?"

"Erm... Oh, nothing." He had looked at the other boy and blushed sort of uncomfortably, and shifted from foot to foot. He always felt so nervous around Feliciano, but Ludwig was always pretty decent at covering it up by acting unusually emotionless. And now, he was staring like an idiot.

Ludwig had never given much thought to sexuality. He had never been attracted to girls, but also he had never been attracted to boys either. Until he had met Feli. He actually made him happy, and Ludwig noticed that Feliciano Vargas was extremely attractive, at least to him. And then there were those strange memories, and he felt so tossed up over if he liked Feli in that way or not. Needless to say, it sucked.

Feli was looking up at him. Ludwig hated it, because he felt like he was getting mixed signals from him for ages. Sometimes he thought, you know, potentially, the Italian might like like him, but at others, it just seemed like friendship.

And then Feli had stared up at him in a way that confused the German, and so he had stared back. The Italian had blinked and said, much more quietly than usual, "Ludwig, I want to try something if it is okay with you."

Ludwig blinked. This was the first time Feli had called him Ludwig since the start of school.

"Um, ja?" He said, in more of a question than a answer. Before he could ask what...

Feliciano pulled his head down.

And kissed him.

And if felt really good pressed against Feliciano.

So he kissed him back. And they stood there. Until they heard a scream from someone who happened to walk around the corner. "What the fucking hell are you doing to my fratello, you damn potato bastard!"

Feliciano broke away and grabbed Ludwig's wrist, dragging him away from his livid brother. They ran and ran until they reached the cafeteria where they stopped in front of Arthur and Alfred eating together.

Then they explained everything, though Ludwig changed it so that he said they had been dating for two weeks, and then Lovino ran away, and then, finally, Ludwig walked away with Feli. They stopped in the library, sitting in a back corner where no one was nearby.

"Feli, I-" Ludwig began.

The other cut him off. "I'm sorry Luddy~! I just wanted to see what it was like, and it really was nice, and then fratello walked in, and I don't know what's wrong with me, but you are really handsome, and you smell really good, and I want to kiss you again, and I love you, I mean I feel like I've known you for a hundred years, and I have these weird memories, and-"

"Vait." Ludwig mentally played through what Feliciano had just said. "You love me?"

Feliciano blinked. "Well, yeah. I know I have only known you for like two months, but it feels a lot longer, and you are nice, and you are really hot, and you except me, and treat me like a person. And I'm so sorry I kissed you! I just couldn't help it."

Ludwig sat back, thinking. Feliciano couldn't actually love him. The other boy was too perfect and everything. And Ludwig was Ludwig. What was he supposed to do? He looked back at Feli. "I vill date you. But no kissing until ve have dated for three months, and no 'I love you' until two months. Agreed? Please?"

Ludwig was muffled by a flash of auburn hair, blue shirt, jeans, and a humongous smile that tackled him in a bear hug. "Ve~ I'm so happy! I can't believe this! I will plan our first date, okay? This will be so much fun! I can't wait!"

And the small Italian ran out of the library, singing in his shrill voice.

Ludwig allowed himself to smile, feeling like he was suddenly the happiest thirteen (as of October third, his birthday, which had been only two weeks ago) year old in the world. Almost. He wondered what Feliciano was going to do...

* * *

A week later Feliciano told Ludwig to go meet him that evening.

An hour after that, Ludwig walked into Gilbert's room. "Bruder, I need your help getting ready. I am scared of screwing zhis up," he said, hanging his head and feeling like crying. Ludwig was very stressed out with what their first date would be like.

Gilbert just nodded and said, "I'll call Eliza." And whipped out his cellphone.

Elizabeta showed up at the door two minutes later, panting. "I-I (gasp) came." Then she set to work, teaching Ludwig everything she knew about boys dating boys (which was a lot). "I could do better if Kiku was here, but he is off with Heracles on their own date. I could call Francis to help with clothes... I honestly know nothing..." And she gestured at her own faded jeans, plain t-shirt, and tennis shoes, then at her plain face (which was pretty, just devoid of makeup, unlike most ninth grade girls) and wavy brown hair that had been messed up in her sprint to the room.

"Er, could it be someone else?" Ludwig really didn't really like how relaxed Francis.

Elizabeta shook her head. "No, it would have to be him. If you really don't want him to be here you should just choose something you are comfortable in, or you know Feli likes. Deal?" Ludwig nodded and Gilbert gave his support. Elizabeta grinned. "Alright! Have fun Ludwig! Gilbert, meet me at six for a football game! Bring your adorable roommate too! He would be so cute as a cheerleader!"

She turned around and ran back out, flashing a thumbs up and leaving.

Gilbert rolled his eyes. "Stupid yaoi obsessed best friends." He muttered under his breath.

"Hungary is pretty nice though, right?" Ludwig said, trying to cover up how much he was shaking.

Gilbert nodded vigorously. "Yeah, of course she is best friends with the awesome- vait. Vhy did you call Eliza 'Hungary'?"

"I don't know why I did. I had better head back to my room and get dressed. Feli said he would get ready at Kiku's."

Gilbert smirked, passing over Ludwig calling Elizabeta a country for the time being. "Have fun. And don't screw this up, West."

Ludwig left, and went to the room and chose the clothes Feliciano had declared he liked the best. A soft green shirt, a pair of jeans, and his iron cross, which he had know idea where he got it, but he had had it since he could remember. It was casual, but he felt comfortable in them, which Elizabeta had said was important too.

Then he walked out to the front of the school and sat down, waiting and nervously slicking back his hair. He only sat for five minutes before he saw his small boyfriend (he still found it odd thinking it) walk out of the front door.

He started in amazement, as it was obvious that the Italian had done everything to make himself look adorable, and it worked. He wore black skinny jeans and a blue sweatshirt, and his hair looked so smooth, and his skin looked soft and he was so fricking attractive and slender...

Feli's eyes lit up when he saw Ludwig, and the small boys cheeks reddened slightly as he took him in. "Ve~ my Doitsu is so handsome, I am so lucky!" He said, wrapping his arms around Ludwig's shoulders and kissing him on the cheek.

"Hey! I said no kissing until three months! Remember!" Ludwig cried, waving his arms and trying to break out of Feli's grip.

Feli grinned sheepishly. "But, Luddy~ it's part of my culture!"

Ludwig sighed and stood up. "Come on, let's get going. Ve only have until nine to stay out."

"Okay!" Feli agreed and grabbed Ludwig's hand, dragging him off.

 **A/N: So, just a few things to say real fast. First, the term "face rape" for kiss was used by my best friend when another one of my friends got kissed for the first time by her boyfriend for the first time, and my best friend was angry, and I was super excited, and it was really funny (my best friend is an overprotective person, and honestly terrified my other friend's boyfriend when they first started dating by attacking him with questions). So, it fits perfectly with Lovino!**

 **And a ton of GerIta fluff! They are the first to get together (besides Giripan). And poor Arthur being concerned over being overly tsundere and never having anyone like him.**

 **So now I want to know you people's opinions and help me figure out if I should write out the date between Ludwig and Feli, and if I should do other point of views, like Feli or Alfred or something.**

 **So, please tell me what you think I should do, and, of course, what you think of the whole fic!**


	7. Chapter 7

**A/N: So... I have new points of view for you all, which will hopefully make up for the shorter than normal chapter...**

 **I'm just sort of having a serious case of writers block, and am in one of those moods where I want to have them all be murdered by a dinosaur, so just be grateful I didn't do that.**

 **Remember, I do not own Hetalia.**

The next day Gilbert stood impatiently in front of his brother's door. Eliza stood next to him, waiting with equal impatience, both of them wanting to know how the date went. Finally, after standing there for ten minutes, Ludwig and Feliciano walked out of the door together, and we're surprised to find themselves immediately being tackled by the girl.

"Tell. Me. Everything," she whispered.

Gilbert sighed and dragged Eliza off of the seventh graders, and was able to persuade her to wait until they got to breakfast to interrogate them. Eliza ended up running to the cafeteria, Gilbert sprinting next to her, with the other two jogging to catch up with the pair. After they had got breakfast and sat down, Feliciano started talking. "Ve~ I wanted to do something nice for Ludwig, so I planned a very nice picnic for both of us, and so we did that and talked and stuff, well, mostly me, but you know, and then we went and got gelato and it was so much fun! Though preparing was difficult because Kiku and Heracles came back early and they were making out, and it was really awkward-"

Ludwig put his hand over Feliciano's mouth, much to Gilbert's relief and Eliza's very very obvious disappointment. "Er, maybe ve could let zhem ask us zheir own questions?"

Eliza smiled and Gilbert couldn't help but stare at her. How could he? She was so nice and motherly to everyone, and the way her eyes sparkled... "What did you eat?" Eliza asked.

"Ve~ we ate typical picnic food! Sandwiches, and pasta, and potato chips, and all of that stuff!"

Matthew sat down next to Gilbert, and he was suddenly distracted from looking at Eliza to staring at the small Canadian, who was looking really cute in a sweater and jeans and his polar bear. "You left before I even got up! Did you forget it's Saturday? I mean, I know I tend to sleep in, but you normally sleep until noon on weekends, and me normally nine or ten," whispered Matthew, and Gilbert snapped back into reality. What the hell?! He had never, ever looked at a boy that way before! He shook himself. Probably just sleep deprivation, he hadn't been getting much rest lately...

Eliza was still firing off questions, and Gilbert refocused himself, listening to her voice. After asking questions and receiving answers for a good half hour, she seemed to finally get tired. Instead she brought up a new topic. "Guess what! It's almost Halloween! What should I dress up as! I want it to be really cool and badass, but I have no idea what to do! What are you guys doing?"

The Prussian grinned. "I'm gonna be a flipping awesome knight! Hey, maybe ve could both dress up as knights, Eliza! Zhen ve could both be badass."

"Um, I thought I could go as The Doctor, because I really love that show..." Matthew whispered.

Feliciano smiled, "Ve~ I'm maybe going to go as a kitty or something! Wouldn't that be super cute and great?!"

Gilbert grinned, "Ja, that vould be neat. And Ludwig could dress as something matching, that would be something I'd pay to see!"

"What are you doing on Halloween, Eliza?"

"Well, we have a school dance that night, but I think maybe we could go trick or treating, you know? Me and Gilbert only have a few more years before we will be too old."

"That sounds fun! We could all go together, right?" Feli sang, glancing at Ludwig as if for permission.

Ludwig nodded. "Ve don't have much time to vork on it though, so ve need to focus."

"Okay," Gilbert agreed. He glanced around at the group and he wondered about how much he knew about them. He had only just met them, and he felt like he had known them years. Oh well, it must just be his awesome social skills!

He went back to his room after a few more minutes of discussing Halloween, having a very bad headache.

Once there he laid down on his bed and thought seriously. He had been having worse and worse dreams, and he had no clue what they meant, and they were making it much harder to think, and every day he woke up feeling just a bit worse, and he hated. Memories or dreams or whatever kept pounding into his head, and he for some reason did not want to remember whatever it was. Gilbert could do it. He would keep the dreams out for as long as he could, dammit. He would.

* * *

Alfred rolled out of bed. He still was having the worst nightmares EVER and God, it was terrifying. He looked around, trying to shake off the memories. Keep on moving forward, and all that shizz. Alfred smiled when he saw his Halloween costume. He was going as Captain America! And it was so freaking neat, and Arthur had helped him make it, and it was perfect.

Thinking of Arthur...

"Artie! Artie! Artie! Wake up! It's Halloween, and I'm gonna scare your eyebrows off with my tricks!" Alfred shouted, jumping on Arthur's bed. They had both agreed to try to scare each other today.

The Briton opened his emerald eyes and suddenly he looked very sad, though that was gone in a minute and replaced by his usual irritation. "Get off me, you bloody wanker!"

"You know you don't mind~" Alfred sang teasingly and laying down next to Arthur and smiling cheerfully. He looked at the other's face in amusement as it lit up bright red.

Arthur tried to sputter in denial. That was, until Alfred (who seriously enjoyed flirting with the guy, it was so much fun messing with him!) hugged him and smiled flirtatiously. "It is so easy to make you uncomfortable, and so much fun!"

"Fine!" Arthur shouted. "The new challenge will be who can make the other blush first wins!"

Alfred shrugged. "Okay, just don't let Francis in on it."

"Oh, God, fucking no," Arthur shuddered. The French ninth grader was very good at flirting with people, though pretty respectful when people told him to back off (with the exception of Arthur, who he enjoyed messing with even more than Alfred). If they made it a straight out challenge to the guy, then they did not want to know where Francis would go with it.

Alfred smiled and stood up, stretching. "Starting after breakfast we can start. Until then, I'm putting on my costume! You should too!"

Arthur rolled out of bed and sighed. "Okay, fine, you idiot." He pulled off his white t-shirt, and dug around his dresser, his slender back facing Alfred. Honestly, if the Briton had turned around then, Alfred would have lost their contest before it even started. Arthur pulled on a clean undershirt and pulled on a white dress shirt over that, carefully buttoning it up, his tongue sticking out slightly from between his teeth in concentration. Alfred almost laughed at how serious he was. Then Arthur pulled on a black cloak and fastened a blue and bronze tie around his neck. "Why are you just standing there staring at me? Get your costume on!"

Alfred shrugged and pulled off his clothes and put on his tight red white and blue Captian America outfit. He stood up and gave a thumbs up to Arthur. "Let's go, wizard boy! I wanna see everyone else's costumes!"

He grabbed his shield and Arthur's arm, and ran down the hall, sprinting until he got to the cafeteria and finding his table, dragging Arthur into a seat next to him. "Dudes! I wanna know what your costumes are!"

"Ve~ I decided to be a kitty! Am I cute? It took me ages to make it!" Feliciano sang, everyone vigorously nodding in agreement. "And I convinced Luddy to be a puppy!"

"Vhy zhe hell did I agree to zhis?" Ludwig said, and Alfred started laughing at how uncomfortable the German looked with dog ears and a tail and paw gloves.

"I am an awesome knight vith Eliza!"

"Hononononon~ you and your friend are so cute~ I am a king, of course," announced Francis, gesturing to his crown.

Antonio smiled and announced, "I am a pirate, and my Lovi is an adorable little spy."

"God fucking dammit, I am not adorable, you fucking tomato bastard!" Lovino shouted, getting some strange looks from nearby students, though Antonio just laughed and brushed it off.

Kiku said quietly, "I am dressed as a samurai."

"I am dressed as The Doctor," Mattie whispered, though Alfred was pretty sure he was the only one who heard him.

"I am Captain America, and Artie is a Ravenclaw wizard dude!" Alfred said after everyone finished introducing their costumes. "And I can't wait to go trick or treating tonight! It will be so cool!"

Arthur said quietly next to him, "And I am looking forward to our next contest, but I know I'll beat you."

"You wish," Alfred replied. He would wipe the floor with him, in both scare and blushing.

 **A/N: So, Halloween!**

 **This should be interesting *evil laughter*. I know something big will happen in maybe the next chapter, so I'm looking for to that.**

 **And I have yet again taken inspiration from friends, as the blushing game is something two of my friends do (my friends are insane. And loud. So that drives me nuts since I'm quiet.) where they try to make the other one uncomfortable/blush, so that was taken from real life, though this will probably have a different result of the game than what happens with my friends.**

 **Finally, please read and review! I really like knowing what people think, so please tell me! Thanks!**


	8. Chapter 8

**A/N: This is probably one of the most important chapters of this whole story. It is definitely the most important thus far.**

 **This chapter only has one point of view, up until the end where we get literally every single person in the main group. And you meet Francis's girlfriend here~**

 **Remember: I don't own Hetalia.**

Arthur pushed through the crowds of students waiting to go to the dance, looking for his friends. The day had crawled by, the only entertaining events had been his incredible success at scaring Alfred (who knew all it took was hanging a creepy ghost in their doorway to reduce the blond American to tears, which Arthur actually felt sort of bad about), and the attempts they had made flirting with each other. Finally, finally, he would be able to go out and trick or treat!

He walked past Toris and Feliks, Tino and Berwald and Lukas and Matthias and Emil (Matthias had started calling their group The Nordics because they were all from Scandinavian countries, and all were dressed as Vikings together), Yao Wang and Ivan Braginsky (Ivan had his two followers standing behind him and was glowering darkly at Toris for some reason), and several other people he recognized, before he finally saw Alfred's red white and blue costume. He got to his friends and winked at Alfred in a lazy attempt to make him blush, and said, "So, are we going now?"

Francis shook his head, his blond hair waving under his crown, "I forgot to tell you all, but I have invited my girlfriend to come for a visit, and Elizabeta agreed to let her stay in her room, but we must wait for her."

Matthew nodded and said, "Of course, but what is her name? You haven't told me much about her, just that she has cancer and is in a wheelchair."

"Her name is Joan," Francis said, and Arthur was shocked by how seriously in love the frog looked. He had never imagined that Francis was actually in love with anybody ever.

They stood around for fifteen minutes, keeping a look out for a girl in a wheelchair. Finally, Francis gasped and ran to a girl, sitting in a wheelchair with blond hair pulled up into a bun, with little curls sticking out around her face. Arthur was surprised, she didn't look like the type of person Francis would go after, he was always so flashy, and, though Joan was very pretty, she was not dressed in anything fancy, and had little or no makeup on her face, and looked like the ideal of dressing modestly.

Francis, after talking to her in French for a few minutes, carefully wheeled her over to the group. "Salut, I am Joan, and Francis says you are his friends. It is nice to meet all of you," she said in a soft French accent.

"Hello~ it is nice to meet you! I am Feliciano Vargas! This is Lovino, my fratello, the one dressed as a spy, and Luddy, my boyfriend, who is the cutest puppy ever!" Feliciano gestured at the two people next to him.

Arthur stuck out his hand, formally. "I am Arthur Kirkland, it is very nice to meet you." Joan smiled, and shook his hand gently, her hand shaking slightly.

"Yo! I am Alfred, and this is my cousin, Matthew, and he can speak French too!"

"It is nice to see you again, Joan," Antonio said, since he and Gilbert already knew her.

Kiku smiled slightly and said, "Herro. I am Kiku Honda, and this is Heracles-san."

She listened politely to all of their introductions, until they had all gone and she said, "Francis told me all about you, and I am so glad to finally be able to put a face to the name! I-" she broke off, her shoulders shaking as she was hit silent coughing fit.

Francis rushed over to her and whispered to her, mostly in French, though it was obvious he was asking if she was okay and if she needed water or anything. Finally, Joan stopped coughing, and, after taking a few deep breathes said, much quieter than before, though her voice still sounded reasonably strong, "I am fine. We can go get dinner and then go trick or treating now."

They decided not to argue, so walked out of the school and went to a nearby pizza place, where they ordered their pizza before sitting together at a nearby booth. When the pizza came, Arthur wasn't very surprised when Lovino started complaining. "Damn British people, ruining perfectly good Italian food, that always tastes fucking perfect and turning it into shit," he said, glaring at the pizza sitting on his plate.

However, they all ate the pizza, though it looked like every bite was causing the oldest Italian physical pain, and after finishing stood up and paid, leaving with Elizabeta in the lead.

They walked for three hours, walking up to doors and getting candy, only having issues when Heracles almost fell asleep and Kiku had to wake him up, and when Gilbert tried to take over being the leader, making Elizabeta hitting him with a frying pan, which was her strange substitute for a knight's sword. Arthur and Alfred also continued their blushing game, even though they were both horrible at it, Alfred being awkward and Arthur having horrible pick-up lines.

They got back to the school at exactly nine, just before they would be considered late, weighed down with candy and pretty tired.

The dance was still going, so Alfred suggested they ditched their candy in their rooms and go and join in. This actually was a pretty decent idea, so they left and came back in ten minutes, meeting outside the gym, where they could hear the music and talking and dancing. Some of them (Arthur, Lovino, Kiku, Ludwig, Matthew, and Joan, for example) were nervously shifting from foot to foot (well, Joan was just shifting in her chair and rolling back and forth), since they weren't the most social people, but everybody else looked excited, except Heracles who, as always, looked like he was bored and tired.

Then they walked in, and all looked surprised. There was not as many students as at the beginning, that was obvious, but it still was at least fifty students dancing or standing off to the sides, almost all in costumes, and then the decorations were all typical Halloween things, but the impressive thing was a giant six meter tall clay pumpkin statue in the middle of the room formed so carefully that you could pretty much see every detail of it. One thing that had stopped them was when they saw the sign attached to it: Clay Pumpkin, by Feliciano Vargas.

Then everyone, even Arthur and Kiku started congratulating Feliciano for how great his statue looked and asking why Feli hadn't told them about it.

After they'd calmed down, they spread out across the floor to start dancing. Arthur decided to just watch, after all, dancing wasn't his thing, and checked to see where his friends were.

Gilbert, Matthew, and Elizabeta were dancing together off to the side, Gilbert attempting to break dance (even if it wasn't that kind of song AT ALL), Matthew and Elizabeta were laughing at him. Kiku and Heracles were standing off to the side together, talking quietly. Feliciano was doing this weird really spazzy looking dance that looked sort of like an alien mating dance, while Ludwig was awkwardly shuffling next to him. Antonio and Lovino were dancing together, and Lovino was surprisingly good. Francis was sitting next to Joan on a bench, talking and eating together, smiling in a pleasant way Arthur had never seen on him. And Alfred... Where was Alfred? Arthur glanced around, trying to look for Alfred's blond hair and shining sky blue eyes.

Arthur was starting to feel nervous, when finally he heard a, "Um, hey, Artie?"

He whirled around to see Alfred shifting nervously, "Where the hell were you? I was vaguely concerned (this was as close to 'I was worried' that Arthur would allow himself to go)!"

Alfred shrugged and said, practically shaking, "do you, maybe, want to dance? With me?"

Arthur blinked at the blushing American. "First of all, I won the blushing contest, so your plan definitely backfired." This had to be a joke.

Alfred tilted his head. "What plan? Could you please dance with me?"

Arthur started blushing as he realized it wasn't a joke. "Ah, okay." He took the American's hand and stood up, and they walked to the center of the floor.

The first few songs they were shaky and nervous. Right up until a song came on that they both really liked, and of course they would play it because of Halloween.

The opening music for 'Thriller' came on, and both of their faces lit up. They grinned at each other, forgetting the previous discomfort. Then they started dancing in perfect sync to the song, dancing until the next one came on and they were out of breath.

Arthur looked over at Alfred and Alfred looked back. They were both smiling and breathing heavily. It was the first time someone had ever really smiled AT Arthur. He suddenly stopped smiling and said, "No one ever has smiled at me before. Why does no one ever feel happy around me? Why does everyone hate me?"

Alfred's smile dropped too. "I don't hate you. Why should I?"

"Because," Arthur said, his eyes tearing up, " I am always so mean to you and pushing you away, why should you like me? It's just because I have a crush on you, and I am really bad at showing my emotions, and-"

Alfred blinked, shocked, and then half smiled, forgetting that Arthur was crying, and was reminded when he noticed the first tears sliding down his face, and then grabbed Arthur's arm and forced him to look up at him. "I promise, I definitely don't hate you. In fact, I really really like you, and I think you are cute when you are angry. I like you, I swear."

Arthur had tears pouring down his face now. "Prove it!" He said, waiting for Alfred to say that he couldn't, certain that he would.

Alfred instead took a step closer to him. And closer. And then Alfred pressed his lips up against Arthur's. They kissed for a minute before Arthur pulled away and smiled. "America, I-" he stopped and slammed his hand over his mouth, his head pounding, images flashing through him. He looked at Alfred, and turned around and ran, his brain stopping and He couldn't think properly.

He got back to his room and sank onto his bed, the images washing over him. Arthur screamed, right up until he literally passed out on his bed.

* * *

Feliciano was in bed when he felt the the memories seeping into his brain, and he cried, because he remembered everything from his earlier life. Including the Holy Roman Empire.

* * *

Matthew collapsed onto his bed the moment he had the memories, unable to move while absorbing them all.

* * *

Lovino screamed when he felt them (it is very painful having memories forced into you), and wouldn't move from where he was standing, until Antonio, who had tears running down his face, hugged him and carried him back to their room and setting him on his bed, where they both fell, still hugging.

* * *

Francis shivered and whimpered in his bed, not wanting to move, and gasping in pain. He saw hundreds of years of wars flashing through his head, and felt the death of millions of soldiers falling on him.

* * *

Ludwig felt the headache and tried his hardest to ignore the pain as long as he could. When he couldn't he sat down and allowed them to absorb into his brain.

* * *

Gilbert was sad. He knew that the images were his memories, and they were not very good. He was surprised he was still alive.

* * *

Kiku curled up on his bed, tears spilling from his eyes, his normal empathy destroyed by his memories of everything that had happened in the past. It hurt.

* * *

Alfred had chased after Arthur, trying to catch up with him, until he got to the room that they shared. He saw Arthur passed out on his bed and was about to walk over when a headache exploded in his head and he just barely made it to his bed before finding himself unable to move, the thoughts paralyzing him.

 **A/N: Salut- French, informal greeting**

 **This might not be the best time to say this... but I will have some trouble writing anything for a couple days. I swear, I am going to try, but my extended family is meeting up for a while, and I am expected to actually socialize. I am so sorry!**

 **I am in a wacky mood right now, so I decided to have a blooper for this chapter:**

 **Arthur had tears pouring down his face now. "Prove it!" He said, waiting for Alfred to say that he couldn't, certain that he would.**

 **Alfred instead took a step closer to him. And closer. And then Alfred pressed his lips up against Arthur's.**

 **Kiku and Elizabeta jumped out of nowhere, taking hundreds of pictures, and Kiku yelled, "Fuck, yes! UsUk action happening here!"**

 **Alfred and Arthur broke apart, frowning at Kiku and Arthur asked, "What the bloody hell is UsUk?"**

 **Kiku laughed maniacally, in a way that could only be described as _fangirlishly_ and answered, "Only my life!" And took a final picture before dashing off with Elizabeta.**

* * *

 **My brain is messed up.**

 **Anyways, I have set up a poll on my profile over if it should be PruHun or PruCan or some other pairing in this fic, so I would love for you all to vote, because I really cannot decide!**

 **And please review! Reviews give me more motivation to write more, and suggestions are always welcome! Also, I decided that everyone who reviews this chapter can tell me one word that I have to put in the next chapter.**

 **Thank you for reading! Hope I can update soon!**


	9. Chapter 9

**A/N: Another chapter, and another two POVS...**

 **I do not own Hetalia.**

The day following Halloween was, fortunately, a weekend day. Unfortunately, even after the weekend was over, so large number of students were too sick to go to class. It was not unusual for a few students to be sick following Halloween, but in this case such an exceptionally large group was sick that teachers actually went to check on them to check to see if they were lying. Unfortunately, they were not, all of the students appeared to be in varying amounts of emotional and physical stress.

* * *

Antonio woke up the next morning, his head pounding.

He had his arms wrapped tightly around something... He opened his eyes and realized his face was just a few inches away from Lovino's. God, if he wasn't so confused he probably would have felt very happy with the situation, especially since Lovi was hugging back just as much.

But Antonio... was Spain. Or, at least he thought so. He still felt like the same Antonio as always, but he had memories, some fuzzy and blurry, that belonged from years ago. And they were also his, because he knew it was him, just mostly older, but he hadn't even been born yet. And he knew that Lovi was in those memories. Most of them in fact. And in some of the best ones. The first one with him was when Antonio was like twelve or something, and he had been so happy to be given the younger country to work for him. But then Lovino, had been, well, Lovino, and Antonio had tried to give him up, but then he had learned that he was really just a sad, unloved little kid, and so Antonio had taken care of and loved him.

Lovino stirred in his arms, shifting and whimpering. He opened one amber eye and whispered, "Spain, I..." before bursting into tears. Antonio understood why. The memories weren't especially bad ones, but it was just freaking confusing sorting them out, and painful. Lovino burried himself deeper into Antonio's shirt, which shocked the fourteen year old. He had always thought that the roughness and bitterness was a shield for Lovino, but Antonio guessed that the shield had just come crashing down, and instead found that Lovino was, apparently, very clingy.

"It's okay, my Lovi, we will be fine."

Lovino was still sobbing, but said in between sobs, "D-dammit, b-b-bastard... of course I'm fine... b-b-but I don't know if I'm Lovino anymore... dammit, am I Lovino or Italy Romano?" He started crying again.

Antonio blinked and scanned his new found memories. "Oh, yes, you were Romano, the southern part of Italy, huh? Well... would you rather me call you Roma or Lovi?"

"Neither, you damn tomato bastard Spain. Wait, would you rather be Antonio or Spain?" Lovino whispered, sounding exhausted.

Antonio half smiled. "What happen to 'tomato bastard'?"

Lovino had stopped crying and looked half asleep. "I don't call you that... in my head..." He whispered, before falling asleep.

Antonio smiled. Maybe Lovi did actually return his feelings... maybe. But he had other things to work out... mainly his memories. So, he was Spain. Okay, that explained a few things.

Whenever his country was in deep financial trouble he had always gotten sick. During history he had always felt personally invested in the wars, and correcting even the teacher when they got something historically wrong. And several other events...

And what about his friends? Maybe he should talk to them. Then he remembered Lovino. Lovino needed him right now, more than anything.

Ever since the first time he had seen Lovino he had been attracted to him. In a way that boys weren't supposed to feel for each other. But he hadn't been able to help it. When he saw him on the first day of school, he had looked so cute, with his amber eyes, and soft looking hair, and cute curl that just happened to spring out of his hair, and he had soft looking, smooth skin. And his temper was adorable because his face got all red like a little tomato. And his Italian accent actually made him hot, not just cute, and...

Antonio decided it was a very bad idea to think about all the things that made you attracted to a person when aforementioned person was pressed up against you and clinging to your shirt.

Anyways, he knew everyone normally focused on Feliciano,and he understood why, what with being cute and cheerful, but he didn't understand why no one knew that Lovino was just shy and not confident. And he knew everyone's focus on Feliciano was a major part of Lovi's lack of confidence.

So, he would admit it fully that he was in love with Lovino Vargas, or Italy Romano or whatever you wanted to call him. But it really didn't matter how he felt, if Lovino didnt feel the same way. But if he did...

Back to more pressing matters.

What did being Spain entail, anyways? Would he have to go into politics or-

Another painful headache struck Antonio while he was thinking, sending him spiralling into unconsciousness.

Antonio finally recovered enough to stand up and stretch. He wondered how badly the others would be taking it. He knew he hadn't taken it nearly as badly as Lovino, but what about Francis and Gilbert? He was reasonably sure they were also in his memories.

Antonio managed to walk over to where his phone was sitting, managing to keep the throbbing headache at bay. He picked it up, and sent a message to Gilbert and Francis: Are you guys OK? I have had some probs, or is that just me?

Then he sat there, trying to collect himself. Lovino was still curled up on his bed, snoring softly, so Antonio stood there, waiting for a response.

Finally, his phone buzzed: Hi, this is Matthew. Gilbert is still dealing with things, so he can't answer right now. I've tried waking him up, but he isn't moving, so that's it. Bye.

Antonio sighed. Apparently he was dealing with it a lot better than most people.

* * *

Kiku's head still pounded two days after he had learned he was a country. Now that the memories were in, they were trying to become clearer and more focused, though this was almost as painful as they had originally been.

Heracles seemed to have it just as bad, as the day before he had told Kiku he was the personification of Greece. Kiku had told him that he knew that, and that most of their friends were apparently countries. It did explain Kiku's love of anime and seafood, and all these other things common in Japan.

Finally he was starting to feel well enough to go back to classes, along with Heracles.

So, Kiku was dragging himself down the hall, feeling like he would pass out, but no, he could not miss more school. However, he was shocked to learn that nearly half the kids he knew were still out. Including Ludwig, Feliciano, Romano, Francis, Gilbert, Arthur, and Alfred, even though Matthew and Antonio were there. Kiku guessed it made sense. They did have very painful histories... but he did too, and he had somehow managed to go to class. And he didn't even know where to begin with being a country...

After classes ended he walked to Alfred and Arthur's room, deciding to check on them. He went through their door to see them both collapsed on their beds, and in their pajamas. Kiku walked over to Arthur, and gently shook him. "Arthur-san, are you okay? Do you know what happened to us?"

Arthur opened one emerald eye to stare up at the Japanese boy, sounding very sick, his face even paler than usual. "I can't... I'm England... and... Alfred... I kissed him, dammit, and this happened..."

Kiku blinked. They kissed? How had he missed that photographing opportunity? Oh, right... He had been making out... with Heracles...

He guessed it was worth it.

Anyways, he calmed Arthur down, and told the other boy that it would be okay, even if Kiku wasn't actually that sure, but oh well, it was okay to lie to comfort someone, he thought. Arthur sighed and said, "how long has it been?"

"Two days," Kiku responded.

Arthur fell back again and murmured, "oh, shit. I can't believe I was out for that long. And I missed a day of school too..."

Then, Arthur stood up and began pulling on decent (not pajamas that had been worn for two days straight by an emotionally strained eighth grader) clothes, muttering about how badly he'd screwed up with not just pushing off the headaches. Kiku honestly didn't blame him for missing a couple days, but he didn't say anything, preferring to look around. Suddenly, he remembered Alfred and woke him up with a shake.

Alfred opened his blue eyes, which were much duller than usual. "Hi Kiku. Or Japan, or whoever. I don't even know."

Kiku, though he sucked at them, decided to try giving a pep talk to the American, and managed to coax him out of bed, trying to say all would be fine, and that he couldn't miss more school then he had (even if he knew that was hypocritical, as he had just told Arthur the opposite, but the American needed more motivation). Finally, Alfred got out of bed and also started changing.

"Arright, we need to get the others out of bed too, because it is not healthy to be in bed this rong. So, we should split up and find the others. Agreed?" Kiku explained, quietly.

Arthur and Alfred nodded seriously. "Agreed," they said at the same time, then glanced at each other and blushed. Kiku sighed. Obviously the two still had stuff to deal with before he could get some decent photos in. Too bad. He would need to get Elizabeta to work on that with him.

"Ah, what about the whole Us Being Countries thing?" Alfred asked the other two.

Kiku almost smiled. "We can talk when we get them arr together."

Arthur nodded, agreeing.

Alfred didn't seem so sure. "But what am I supposed to do? It sorta makes sense because when the government shut down a few years ago, I went into a coma. But what if it happens again? And... oh my god, Kiku! I bombed your country. And you were a wreck, and I still feel so horrible about it, and-"

"Alfred-san, calm down, I forgive you," Kiku said, quickly. "We just will have to dear with this rater. Now, ret's go."

 **A/N: Gilbert's memories probably suck, mostly Berlin wall time.**

 **Anyways, I would really like to know what you guys think should happen, and I will try to use your suggestions. I have a vague idea of what I want, but I still love suggestions.**

 **And we have broken 1000 views and 450 visitors on this story, and I am super happy.**

 **So, I don't have much to say this chapter, just thank you for reading, and please review, since those are always very motivational.**


	10. Chapter 10

**A/N: So, like, I know this happens a lot with me, but I will be, yet again, unable to update for about a week. My family enjoys camping. I, personally, don't like outside much, but this time we are going to Lake Powell in Southern Utah, and that place is freaking awesome because you can swim 24/7, it's so hot, like one hundred degrees (Fahrenheit, don't worry, the world is not ending, everyone besides people in the outdated United States, who use celsius) every day. But it will suck not being to write.**

 **Remember, I don't own Hetalia.**

Matthew was getting used to being Canada. Just enough to not have a mental breakdown. Unfortunately, it seemed like everyone else was having one.

Gilbert was taking it horribly. He was trying to wake him up again, but the albino would not move, and had not, for almost two days. Matthew had tried everything, playing Fall Out Boy as loud as possible, making pancakes for him, everything.

So, when Kiku, Alfred, Antonio, and Arthur marched into his room, he did not expect their mission to get everyone going again would work. "Hi, Alfred. I'm sorry, but I don't think this will work for Gilbert. He just won't wake up completely. I've done everything."

Antonio grinned. "Obviously not everything, amigo. You have not tried something that is guaranteed to wake him." Without further ado, him and Alfred ran into the bathroom and came out moments later with a bucket full of water, and promptly dumped it on Gilbert's head.

Gilbert shot up, and immediately punched Antonio in the face, screaming, "you cannot have me, you damn communist! I won't let you!" Then, he opened his eyes and blinked. "Oh, sorry Antonio. I was having a bunch of un-awesome dreams and-"

He broke off and crumbled to the floor, his normally pale face turning completely white. "Oh, fuck. I'm a- you guys-"

Matthew smiled gently, and kneeled down next to the normally outgoing Prussian. "We know. You have been out for nearly two days, and thanks to my knowledge of your history it doesn't surprise me much. But we need to get the others up too. So, you can come with me if you want, but I am definitely going with the others. You might want to rest a bit, it is very stressful, so you can stay here."

Gilbert gave Matthew a grateful look that made the seventh grader blush slightly. "Zhank you, I think I vill stay here, but by zhe time you get back, I should be good."

Gilbert stood up and sat back down on his bed while the other five left the room to go to the next person. Once they had walked into the hall, Matthew turned to the others and asked in his usual whisper, "Who have you already visited?"

Arthur spoke up, "We have already been to Heracles and Francis, though Gilbert was the only one we have dumped water on for some reason."

"That's because he is the only one who wouldn't murder us for it, that's why," Antonio stated. "Even though he did punch me in the face. Am I getting a bruise? Does it make me look badass?"

Kiku smiled slightly and tilted his head, saying, "Antonio-san, I do not think you can rook badass while smiring that much."

Antonio nodded, and Arthur said, "Anyways, who is next?"

Antonio shrugged. "Ludwig and Feliciano's room is near here. We could head there." They all agreed to that, and walked to the room in silence.

Pushing through the door, Matthew stood with the others, observing the room. Feliciano was hidden under a pile of blankets in his bed, only the top of his auburn head visible, and Ludwig was leaning against his wall, curled up, his face hidden in his hands. Kiku walked purposefully over to Ludwig and shook his arm gently. "Ludwig-san, you need to get up. We know we are countries, but you need to move on and figure it out ourselves, and we could use your help."

Ludwig shifted and looked up at the boys standing around him. His blue eyes were red with crying. "But I killed people. I caused a genocide. For God's sake, ve call it the holocaust! And it's my fault."

"No," Alfred said, sitting down next to Ludwig, who now had tears streaming down his face. "You might have done horrible things, but that was because you were scared of your boss, remember? We have all done bad things because our basses told us to, and we had no idea how to fight back. Especially during the world wars."

They all nodded, even though Matthew couldn't really remember when he had done something like that off the top of his head. Ludwig was still crying, which was strange as Matthew had never seen him be super emotional, he just had seemed mostly shy. "That's why we started the U.N., right? And made the universal deceleration of human rights? It was so nothing that bad would happen again," Arthur said.

Ludwig nodded and seemed to be recovering himself, even though tears were still dripping down his face. "You should vork on Feli. I vill be fine in a couple minutes."

Alfred stood up and walked to the other bed. The rest followed quietly, watching as Alfred tapped the bundle on what was probably the shoulder.

Feliciano shivered under the blankets and whispered quietly, "Holy Rome?"

Antonio shook his head. "No, Feliciano." His voice cracked. "We are not the Holy Roman Empire."

Feliciano's blankets shifted, and they could suddenly see his large brown eyes. "But... oh... right... you guys... why am I only now remembering these things while I am pretty sure I wasn't born yet?"

"We don't know, but we want to get everyone together to figure it out," Matthew whispered.

Feliciano shoved his blankets away. "Oh. Okay. I will be fine. How is Luddy?"

Alfred's smiling face fell. "He is... I don't know... maybe you could get up and talk to him?"

"Sure." Feliciano stood, and smiled at them. "Thank you for waking me. I want to go with you to help you get the others up. But first I need to check on Ludwig, so just wait a moment, okay?" And the small Italian rushed to the other bed after shoving on decent clothes while talking.

Arthur looked stunned. "Well... He recovered fast..."

"Its his way of coping," Matthew said. "He just moves on, like what Kiku said. He tries to ignore the sadness, which is how he is always happy. It's not even really an act at this point, I think. He actually is able to push it to the back of his mind and stay optimistic."

They all stared at Matthew in shock, even Kiku, who's normally empty face looked just as surprised as the others. "Ah, Mattie, how do you know this?" Alfred asked the other boy, who hugged Kumajiro closer to him.

Matthew smiled slightly. "I'm good at figuring out people. That's why I like learning about psychology."

* * *

Feliciano hugged Ludwig, who, after few moments said, "Feliciano, I'm good now. You should go with the others and get your brother."

Feliciano looked at Ludwig, who had at least stopped crying. "Are you sure?"

The German nodded and so Feliciano stood up and walked to the others. "Ve~ I am ready to go! Let's go to fratello now!"

Then the others nodded and walked out the door and to the room Antonio and Lovino shared.

They walked in and saw that Lovino was curled up in some tight ball on Antonio's bed. Antonio walked over to the Italian and began softly stroking his head. "So, it actually was very difficult to wiggle away from him, because he was hugging me so hard, and when I finally did get up he curled up like so, and wouldn't move."

Feliciano nodded. There were very few times he had actually seen Lovino cry, but when he did, he always would fold in on himself and stop functioning. This was apparently worse than usual, as normally Lovino would recover himself in a day at most. He walked carefully over to his brother. "Hey, fratello... could you maybe wake up?"

Lovino didn't move.

Antonio shook him and said, "Hey, Lovi, we need you to wake up. Come on, wake up."

Lovino shifted slightly, and muttered, "leave me alone, you dumb fucks. I'm trying to disappear in peace and you idiots are ruining it."

Antonio exclaimed, "oh, Lovi! You're okay!" And proceeded to hug the eighth grader, who started yelling at him to leave him alone.

Feliciano turned to the rest of the group and giggled, "Ve~ I think we can go round everyone up now!"

"About that," Arthur said, "what exactly are we going to do? And who is going to come?"

Matthew sighed. "What do we always do? We have a world meeting. Except let's just do our friends for now, and maybe we can privately talk to other groups we know later."

So, everyone split up to get different people, and Feliciano found himself walking on his own to Ludwig. He ran into their room and saw Ludwig searching for a shirt to put on. And he wasn't wearing a shirt. Feliciano gagged in the doorway, this being the first time seeing Ludwig without a shirt on. And... wow.

Ludwig turned around to see Feliciano staring at him, and he blushed, before quickly pulling a t-shirt over his head. Feliciano smiled at how awkward Ludwig looked and decided to try to put him at ease. "Hi! I am sorry for staring, but you are so muscular! Not in a bad way, you are still pretty thin, but in a way that is noticeable. And it is so different from me, because my only exercise is running for fun, so I am just sort of small and thin. Anyways, we are having a meeting thing and-" Feliciano stopped talking, something suddenly occurring to him. "I want to kiss you."

Ludwig blinked. "Vhat? No. Remember to vait until three months?"

Feliciano giggled lightly and stepped closer to Ludwig, who stiffened. "But we have known each other much longer, haven't we? If my memory is right we have known each other since World War One. So, can I kiss you?"

Without waiting for a response, Feliciano walked right up Ludwig and kissed him. After a minute of kissing they broke apart and Feliciano grinned, satisfied. "Ve~ let's go! We have to hurry!" And he grabbed Ludwig's hand and ran down the hall, feeling like he could fly, because he had just kissed Ludwig for the first time without being interrupted.

"Vait! Feli! Slow down!" Ludwig complained as Feliciano ran to the library, their agreed meeting spot.

Feliciano just laughed and continued to run, up until he got to the library and went to a table where everyone else was already. He pulled Ludwig into the seat next to him, and Alfred immediately started talking. "So, I know these things always kind of turn out suckishly, but we are trying it for the first time in- well I honestly don't know, but I know it was before I was born! Which brings us to the first topic we have to discuss! Why the heck are we human! Because, and correct me if I'm wrong about this, but I'm pretty sure that I am only a twelve year old, but also a several hundred year old country. So, what do you all think is happening here?"

"Maybe we died, and we're just reborn?" Arthur suggested.

"No," Kiku said, "Remember that we arr heal very quickry, and it would make no sense that we arr died at once. There is probabry a good reason for it."

Ludwig sat back in his chair and sighed, "Ve probably von't be able to figure zhis out right avay, so ve should all try to remember, and in the meantime explain it to everyone ve can think of. Agreed?"

"Ve~ Let's do this!" Feliciano added, before they all split off to tell everyone they could think of.

 **A/N: poor Ludwig.**

 **Anyways, I basically gave all news at the top for a change, but please remember to vote for my poll that is on my profile. And this story has reached five hundred views, which is great.**

 **Finally, I seriously love reviews, and I will take suggestions from people and try to use them, so please review!**


	11. Chapter 11

**A/N: I'm back~**

 **Here we have Iceland's POV, even if it doesn't add much to the plot, but I've sort of been on a Nordic fanfic binge lately, so I wanted to put him in.**

 **I have not gained ownership of Hetalia since the last time I wrote.**

Emil was actually pretty scared at the moment.

It wasn't that he was scared of his memories, he could deal with that, but what about actually being a country? Up until a couple days ago he hadn't even thought that there could be personified countries, and now he was one.

At least Lukas, Matthias, Tino, and Berwald were also countries. It would suck if he had been the only one of the Nordics to actually be a Nordic. It was funny that Matthias had been able to put them into the same group, and had refered to them with country based nicknames. He had literally been calling Emil 'Ice' and 'Icey' all year long, and it was super annoying.

Unfortunately, Emil was the only one of them who had gone to classes that day. And he did not want to deal with this on his own, he was still just a kid.

It turned out that it actually wasn't as bad as he had expected, since he had no classes with any of the others, because they were all older than him, but he was lonely at lunch and breakfast since he had never really tried to make more friends, mostly from his mild social anxiety and general shyness. At lunch a Chinese boy had come and sat next to him, which was seriously confusing. The fact he had never spoken to this guy and now he had had a meal with him.

He had walked up to his table in the corner and just sat down. "Hi Emil. You're Iceland, right?"

"Ummm yes? I'm sorry, but who are you again?" Emil had admittedly been surprised by the other being so blunt and so open.

The boy had just tilted his head, his expression remaining neutral. "I'm Kaoru, the personification of Hong Kong. So, what's new?"

Emil had still been feeling very uncomfortable, and his breathing picked up slightly, "you mean besides being a country? Not much."

"That's not new," Kaoru had said, sipping his soda, his face remaining neutral. "We've been countries for hundreds of years, some of the others thousands. Well, you have been a country. I'm a colony turned city, but who's being specific."

Emil had fingered the sleeve of his gray sweater, and asked, "We have classes together, right? I've never talked to you but..." I'm too shy so I never talk to anyone except for my brother and the other Nordics. Kaoru just nodded, understanding the silent end to Emil's shy sentence, and after that the conversation had gone more smoothly.

Now, during dinner, Emil decided that he would go check on Lukas and Matthias. Kaoru had been the only person he had spoken to all day, but that had been okay, since apparently their one conversation made Kaoru confident that they could talk all the time. Except now Emil was eating alone again, because Kaoru was forced by his older brother, Yao, to eat dinner with him every night. Emil threw away his food and picked up his bag and slung it over his shoulder, and held Mr Puffin (he knew it was stupid to have a stuffed animal, but he just couldn't let it go) in his arms. He started walking to the door, hoping no one would stop to talk to him. He missed his brother and really needed comfort.

"Hola, Emil, can we talked to you a minute?" Dang it. Emil spun around to see Antonio Fernandez Carriedo and Lovino Vargas walking towards him. Why couldn't he just disappear? They were both taller than him, so he had to tilt his head up slightly to look at them. It had been a horrible idea to skip sixth grade and go straight to junior high. Everyone was older, and so much more intimidating.

"Yeah, sure, why not." His voice was shaky. Stupid anxiety.

Lovino glared at him and moved closer to Antonio before saying, "So, we know you and the other Nordics are actually THE Nordics, so we just need to ask if you could tell us if you remember anything about how the hell we ended up going from adult countries to kids. Let's go, tomato bastard." Emil didn't want to mention he had only been sixteen or seventeen, so he wasn't actually an adult. Oh, God. He was probably going to stop aging as soon as he got to that age again.

Antonio put an arm around Lovino, who was trying to turn away, and said, "Gracias! See you later." Then they both walked away, and Emil quickly ran to Lukas and Matthias' room so no one else could talk to him, he really couldn't deal with any more social contact today.

Finally, he got to the room and pushed it open to see Lukas sitting next to Matthias, who was crying in his bed, even though he looked asleep. This was a shock to Emil. He had never seen Matthias stop smiling before. But then he ran into the room as soon as Lukas looked up and jumped on the ninth grader, hugging him and crying. He felt Lukas carefully pet his platinum blond hair, until finally Emil stood up and said, wiping his eyes, "I'm s-s-sorry I was j-j-just so stressed and scared, but I'll be okay." He awkwardly moved back and asked in a steadier voice, "is Matthias okay?"

Lukas nodded, his normally expressionless eyes softer than usual. "Yes, he should be fine. I'm sorry I didn't come to classes, but I had to help Matthias. It's the same way with Tino, who called me earlier. We should be fine to go to school tomorrow, and if this idiot complains I'll kick his ass. You can sit around in here until you feel better."

Emil nodded and curled up on Lukas' bed, feeling much better then he had been. Hey, and maybe he had even made a new friend, or whatever he could call Kaoru. That would be nice. After a few minutes, he was comfortable enough to go back to his room, and said goodbye to his brother before leaving to go to his own empty room.

* * *

Lovino wasn't sure if he would ever figure out how he was a country at this point. It had been three weeks since his memories had returned like magic and nothing had happened. Literally nothing. The most exciting thing had been a new class project in History where they were all researching Ancient Egyptian shit, that Lovino frankly didn't care about. That was Gupta's (personification of Egypt) thing.

Every grade was doing it, so it was a constant topic of discussion with Alfred and Matthew, because Alfred was super excited, though he didn't know much about it at first.

This was how the conversation went:

"I have to learn about Queen Nefritiffy!" Alfred had said.

Matthew had shook his head and smiled slightly, "Nefertiti."

"I've heard it both ways."

"No, you haven't," Matthew had smiled wider and said quietly, "I thought you were good at archaeology. Looks like you need to brush up on some of it."

Maybe Matthew was actually kind of funny and sarcastic sometimes. This was interesting, as Lovino had previously written him off as a way too sweet person.

Anyways, Lovino was bored as hell, and needed something to happen. He made the mistake of telling Antonio this.

He honestly thought that Antonio probably didn't like him at this point. He had become a bit nervous and clingy ever since Antonio had comforted him. And his feelings for Antonio had doubled, which sucked and he struggled to cover up. He was just so... perfect.

And wasn't fate a bitch, since they still stayed in the same room, and Antonio probably was just keeping up the appearance of actually caring about him. He probably liked this new girl he talked to, Bella, who was the personification of Belgium. After all, it was stupid to just assume Antonio liked guys. It scared Lovino so badly; he had been given up and abandoned so many times, and he had just been starting to think that Antonio wouldn't, but then he was a country and-

Anyways, at one point he told Antonio that he was bored and Antonio, being the overly nice person he was, said he would do something about it. And so, that night, Antonio woke Lovino with a shake, and Lovino jumped out of bed in a panic.

"What the fuck was that for?!" He cried, whipping his head to face Antonio.

Antonio grinned and said, "since you said you were so bored, I have come up with an easy solution! A scavenger hunt!"

Lovino glared, his brain still hazy with sleepiness. "Couldn't this wait until morning?"

Antonio's smile fell slightly. "But Lovi~ I just finished working on it and I was so excited and I had to show you!"

Lovino glanced at the clock and saw that it was three in the morning. He had stayed up that late for him? He blushed and said, "you shouldn't have done that."

"But why?" Antonio's face fell even further and it looked very different without his trademark smile that always made Lovino's stomach flutter, and Lovino felt emotions flicker across his own face as he realized that it was his fault Antonio was sad.

Lovino regained his usual composure and said, "Because you need to get sleep, idiota. You become even more of a useless bastard when you are tired."

Antonio smiled and swept the smaller boy up in his arms and laughed, "Ahhh," he cooed, "my Lovi cares about my feelings!"

Lovino spluttered uncomfortably at the sudden contact with the Spaniard. He blushed when his first thought was 'wow this guy is much more fit than I realized' and argued to cover up his confusion, "I don't care about your feelings! Sh-shut up! Just tell me about the goddamn scavenger hunt so we can go back to sleep!"

Antonio set Lovino down and led him to the desk, and presented him a red rose with a piece of paper tied to the stem and told him, "This is your first clue. You find where this is and you find the next clue. The first couple should be pretty easy, but they get steadily harder. Also, tell me after you find each one so I can prepare. You have until Christmas break. Okay?"

Lovino nodded, "This will probably be easy. Thank you." Did he just say that? He was way to tired to focus on anything.

He really didn't remember what happened next, but he thought he might have said something to Antonio before stumbling to his bed and collapsing, clutching the rose in his hand, the note brushing his fingers and falling asleep almost immediately, Antonio having successfully distracted him from his problems with being a country.

 **A/N: Emil skipped a grade because, admittedly, if I put him at the right grade for his age (in this he has just barely turned twelve) then he would not be in junior high, and I cannot split up the Nordics. Also, for Hong Kong and Belgium's names I just went with the possible names that I liked the most.**

 **I also know that half the main characters weren't mentioned, but they probably will next chapter.**

 **THERE IS A REFERENCE IN HERE FROM A SHOW. If someone guesses what show and which lines, I will give them a metaphorical cookie and let them choose a sentence that I will have to put in the next chapter no matter how crazy it is and a character that they want to show up (it will not be a point of view, but the character will have speaking lines).**

 **Finally, please review, and tell me any suggestions you have for the plot. Thanks!**


	12. Chapter 12

**A/N: It has actually been pretty hard for me to write, since I have been recently distracted by YouTube (*cough*Dan and Phil*cough*). But, I have done it!**

 **I do not own Hetalia.**

Matthew walked down the hallway, talking to Yakaterina, this nice girl who was personification of Ukraine (he was getting used to the fact that almost everyone in the school was a country). She was really sweet and quiet, and had actually noticed him a while back, so they had started talking to each other. She was a year older and a bit more, erm, developed then most girls in Matthew's grade, but he didn't really pay attention to it, even though most guys apparently really couldn't get past it. They were so stupid, because if they got past that they could see she was a really cute and great person.

Yakaterina laughed at something Matthew said, and he blushed, worried that he had done something wrong and was being mocked. But then Yakaterina just smiled at him and said, "You are really funny and cute with your blushing you know? You also have a really different sense of humor. I wish more people saw that about you."

"Yeah, well, um, I'm just glad that you saw," Matthew was sort of nervous. Were they flirting? He didn't know anything about flirting. What was he supposed to say to flirt?

She just said kindly, "Me too." Suddenly, her brother appeared around the corner, his scarf flapping as he walked. Matthew shrank against a wall in fear, he didn't want to admit it, but Ivan sometimes scared him. Yakaterina, who was unaware of the fear most people felt around Ivan, waved cheerfully and skipped over to him, and Matthew followed cautiously.

Ivan smiled at both of them and said, "Hello, you two," and, directed to Matthew who smiled shyly up at him, "So, you are friends with my sister, da?"

"Ummm, y-yes," Matthew stuttered, blushing deeply.

"I am so happy for you two!" Ivan sang. Then Yao walked around the corner and his eyes widened in surprise. "Chu! I was looking for you! Goodbye Yakaterina and Matthew!" Then the Russian wrapped his arms around the smaller boys shoulders and kissed his cheek before they walked off.

Matthew glanced at Yakaterina. "Chu? What does that mean?"

"It's Ivan's pet name for Yao," she explained.

Matthew shook his head, "There must be something weird about this school. Like, ninety percent of my friends are gay."

Yakaterina giggled softly, "Elizabeta always talks about how it's great we go to a school full of gay people," she suddenly looked at the watch on her wrist and said, "Oh, I'm sorry, I have to go. I'm supposed to go practice my clarinet. I'll see you later, right?"

Matthew smiled slightly, "Yeah, of course, bye," he waved his pale hand as she walked away.

He smiled wider when she had left and pretty much flew down the halls to his room. He had a friend! This was his first friend he had made on his own all year, because Gilbert didn't really count, since they were stuck together, and the others didn't, just because he was somehow connected to them through Alfred and Gilbert, plus they had been friends sort of as countries, but he had made this one by himself!

Rushing into his room he immediately saw Gilbert standing in the middle of it, looking pissed. The smile slid off Matthew's face. "What is it?"

"Like you fucking care. You told me you vould come here right after classes and so ve could vatch Friends or play Five Nights At Freddy's or listen to My Chemical Romance or something, and I've been sitting here feeling completely unawesome vaiting for you. Vhere zhe hell vere you anyways?" Gilbert snarled, his ruby eyes flashing and making Matthew nuzzle his face into the top of Kumajiro's head in fear.

Matthew whispered, "I was talking to Yakaterina..."

Gilbert walked up to him and said, gruffly, all of the usual happiness gone from his voice, "Congrats on getting a girlfriend. Now, if you would please inform me before you skip on your usual friend time to go on a date. I'm gonna go see West." And the Prussian stormed out of the room, Gilibird flying after him in a hurry.

Matthew wondered why he was so mad. What had he even done? He had just talked to Yakaterina, and just sort of flirted with her a little, but he didn't like like her, so why call her his girlfriend?

He had no clue, and it was obvious that Gilbert wasn't coming back, so he decided to just go for a walk by himself.

Outside, he was wandering around for half an hour he was starting to get seriously cold (which was saying something, as he was Canada) when he saw Ned, the Netherlands, approaching him, and so he smiled and waved slightly. The tall boy came up to him and half smiled, which was very rare for him. "You look cold," he observed.

Matthew nodded, shivering. "I seriously am. Should have brought a sweatshirt," he said, his teeth chattering as he tried to hug his self through the thin, red long sleeved shirt.

Need nodded, and suddenly removed his coat from his own back, and handed it to the Canadian, who looked up at him. "I-I couldn't use this! You'll be cold instead, then!"

"I still owe you for helping me," said Ned, shrugging. "Oh, I also have another tulip for you. They are cheap, and grow nicely, so it is easy to get them from greenhouses." And he handed Matthew a little blue tulip.

Matthew blushed and put on the coat, holding the tulip in his cold hands. "Th-thank you. You're a really great friend."

End nodded, and they talked for the next few minutes, until Matthew saw a flash of white hair in the corner of his eye, looking, because he thought he had just seen Gilbert. But he couldn't see him anymore, but decided he should go anyways. "Have you eaten yet, Ned?"

"Hmm... oh, yes, I ate with Bella."

Matthew nodded and said, "Well I haven't, so I'm gonna go. Bye, see you later!" And, after handing back the coat and being pummeled with cold, walked back to the school, twirling the blue tulip between his fingers. Maybe he didn't suck so bad with friends.

* * *

Gilbert raced into the school, feeling like he wanted to punch someone in their shitty face. Particularly a certain Netherlands.

He had been going to ask Matthew to forgive him, and then they'd hang out and have fun, but then he saw them. Matthew, his fucking Teddy Bear, wearing Ned's coat and twirling a flower between his perfect delicate and pale fingers.

It had been bad enough, learning he was talking to Yakaterina, but NED? Gilbert was pretty damn sure Matthew was gay, so a girl wasn't that bad. Actually, it was freakishly obvious that he was gay. But he couldn't be sure, because Matthew had never said it himself. He could be bi. Or pan. Or he could actually just be an extremely feminine straight person. But he had totally blown him off for a girl, and now was fucking flirting with a guy.

He stopped and leaned against the wall. Why was he reacting so badly? He liked Eliza, dammit, he was in love with her. Mostly.

Why couldn't Matthew like him, though? (Not that it truly mattered to him.)

I'm a huge, albeit awesome, dork, that's why, he answered himself bitterly. He closed his eyes, thinking. Suddenly, he heard two voices whooping as the owners ran down the hall.

"Hola, mi amigo! We have a surprise for you~" Antonio sang, hiding the large bag he was carrying behind his back.

"I'm sorry guys, I'm not in the mood right now," Gilbert sighed, looking at Antonio and Francis, who both were hiding black trash bags behind their backs.

Francis frowned, "What is wrong?"

"Nothing," Gilbert said, trying to act like nothing WAS wrong.

But then he saw what was in one of the trash bags.

"Woah! Did you guys actually get helium balloons? Those are so awesome and fun!"

Antonio smiled, "Si, we did! Come on, we are going to Francis' room, since he doesn't have a roommate!" And this time Gilbert followed, because it was awesome helium balloons for God's sake.

After the trio got to the room, they immediately grabbed a pair of scissors and poured out the rainbow of balloons, then Gilbert and Antonio cut the balloons, and breathed in the helium. "This is so awesome, you guys!" Gilbert said, and then he and Antonio burst out laughing at how funny it was for him to have a helium-induced chipmunk voice.

Antonio finally recovered himself, and said, "it's no problem," before he started laughing again. Then the two turned to Francis. "You should do it! Then you can speak French in this voice and it would be really funny!"

Francis shook his head. "No, I must stay magnificent while you to screw around like idiots. I refuse."

Then Gilbert and Antonio glanced at each other and nodded in unison, before tackling Francis at the same time and forcing helium into his mouth. Francis stood up and started yelling at them in a mix between French and English, but Gilbert and Antonio wouldn't stop laughing at his high pitched voice, until finally Francis broke and started laughing too.

Eventually, they ran out of balloons, and it became late enough that they had to head back to their own rooms. Gilbert walked back to his room, his bad mood returning as he felt angry and... jealous? Over Matthew talking to other people. He knew that he shouldn't be, but it still irritated him deeply that it couldn't just be him and Matthew as friends.

He shoved the door open to see Matthew laying in bed, and Gilbert was tempted to go over and apologise, for a moment, because, though the Canadian wasn't facing him, he looked sad. But when he saw the blue tulip sitting on Matthew's desk, and he instead walked over to his own area and got ready for bed without a word.

 **A/N: Poor Mattie and Gilbert, I am so hard on you.**

 **Anyways, I don't have much to say, but I am losing some of my motivation, as no one is commenting (haven't I told you comments give me life?), but I will not give up!**

 **I am sticking with this story!**

 **But comments are seriously amazing, and I appreciate anything and everything you have on suggestions for plot and such.**

 **Also, I need to know if I should stick with the PruCan that is definitely coming, with the direction this is heading. There is still time to vote on my poll!**


	13. Chapter 13

**A/N: Thank you all you great reviewers who told me to keep working on this story! I love you guys!**

 **Anyways, I don't own Hetalia, because I barely have enough money to buy merchandise, let alone the whole franchise.**

Feliciano was skipping to his room, when a hand reached out and grabbed his wrist. Oh no. Not them. He began shaking like a leaf when he saw the four tenth grade kids that surrounded him. No. No. No. Why did they have to do this? He had actually been healing since last time, so why now?

"C-ciao, you g-g-guys... h-how have you been?" Feliciano asked, his voice squeaking from his fear of the group sneering down at him.

The tallest (Gerald, Feliciano remembered grimly) grinned down at him, being a foot taller, and said, mockingly, "Oh, fine, fine. How is your boyfriend, Feli?" Why did the largest guys have to be be homophobes? Why did they pick him out of all the homosexuals in the school? Why did bullies always gravitate toward him?

He had told Lovino that real schools weren't like the ones in books, back on the first day of school. For the most part, they weren't, at all. But apparently bullies could actually exist. Maybe they were more subtle then the ones in books, he had yet to get his head forced down a toilet, but it still involved some physical risk, and possibly more mental risk than in books.

Feliciano whispered, his vocal tic (Ve~) was noticeably absent when he got nervous, like now, "He is fine. I have to go meet him now actually."

They laughed and sneered, and Feliciano sunk deeper into the wall. One of them, Pete, grabbed his other wrist and said, "Oh, but we want you to be with us, Feli." Don't use the nickname Luddy uses. I won't let you ruin it for me. No. It's just Ludwig's.

The boys dragged him outside, to a corner of the field where the bullies normally beat people up. Feliciano knew it well. They spoke sharp words to him, making fun of him and naming all of his faults.

"You're so stupid."

"You are so useless to everyone."

"Stop being such a wimp."

"Stop being so fake and nice, because everyone knows your not."

The usual words bullies said.

But they still hurt. Badly.

With each cruel word they hit him, treating him like a punching bag, hurting him physically as well as mentally. His body became covered in blossoming bruises. They finally left.

Feli curled up and sobbed. It had been happening more often lately. They had been hurting him more. He was having trouble trying to keep moving and staying happy, but sometimes everything came crashing down on him.

What if they are right?

That was Feli's biggest fear. What if it was all true? The words had worked their way into his head, and he felt trapped in those words.

Finally, he finished crying (mostly) and walked slowly back to his room, everything aching. He got there and opened the door to see Ludwig standing in the area by his bed. He looked up from the homework he was in the act of checking to see Feliciano, his pale arms colored with purple and blue, and his face sporting a black eye and cut lip. He rushed to the small Italian. "Who did this Feli? Who vas it zhis time?"

Feli blinked, more tears sprouting in the corners of his large brown eyes. It was worse this time, he knew it. Normally they only hit him a few times, only a few bruises. "It w-was Gerald a-and the others. They insulted me and hurt me, b-but they are right. I'm so stupid. I can't even defend myself! Wh-why would anyone like me! Why do you like me! I'm u-u-useless," he sobbed, curling up again.

Ludwig sat beside him, and hugged Feliciano shaking his head, "No I don't think you are stupid or useless. You are just a bit... innocent. But zhat is vhat I like about you. You are alvays so happy. And I couldn't hate you, ich libe dich."

Feliciano stopped sobbing, puzzled with the German words. "What was that... I... love you? In German?"

Ludwig nodded, "yes, Feli. You are right. And don't worry about bullies. Zhis is zhe last time I'm letting you get hurt. Just stick with me, okay?"

Feli nodded and clung to Ludwig. "Ve~" he said in a weak attempt to become his usual happy-go-lucky self, even though he was failing miserably at the moment. "My Doitsu always wants to protect me, he is so nice..." Feliciano attempted to smile, and nuzzled his face into the others neck, he wanted to show Ludwig that he WAS feeling better, because he honestly was.

This was the first time Ludwig had promised him something like that, mainly because Ludwig was also intimidated by the students at least three years older, and much taller than him, even if he was rather talk for a seventh grader, and even impressed eighth graders, it did not move passed ninth grade. But now he was standing up for him! "Can I kiss you now?" Feli loved physical signs of affection between them.

Ludwig rolled his eyes, a light brush tinting his cheeks. "Vhy is zhat vhat you think of, right after you got hurt?"

"Because it would make me feel better~" Feli sang, smiling into his boyfriend's face, enjoying himself suddenly. "You don't want me to still feel bad, do you?"

"Mein Gott," Ludwig sighed. "You just changed moods in two seconds. Matthew vas right. Okay, fine. I vill kiss you." He pecked Feli on the mouth, and then picked him up and carried him to his bed, with a little squirming from the little Italian, sitting him down and grabbing a first aid kit and working on cleaning him up.

After finishing cleaning the black eye, Feliciano pulled Ludwig's face down and kissed him again briefly. "Ve~ thank you Ludwig. Can I go to sleep now?"

"Alright, if you are okay vith missing dinner. Sleep vell."

Feli blinked sleepily, shaking his head. "Could you... stay with me?"

"Okay," said Ludwig, dragging a chair to the bed and picking up his book (he was reading that American book The Outsiders).

"Grazie... Germany..."

Francis brushed his hair in the empty room, which he remembered requesting at the start of the school year. He didn't really regret his decision. He never did. But it did sometimes get lonely. But not tonight, he reminded himself, settling down in front of his laptop. Tonight, he would be able to talk to Joan on Skype, keeping up the promise of speaking for two hours every other day. It pulled him through the days seeing Joan, even if it was through a computer screen.

He turned on the laptop, settling down more comfortably, checking himself in his mirror one last time. He had to be ready.

He saw a small tab pop up in the corner of the screen, and clicked it, Joan's face appearing. His smile faltered as he saw her face, thin and pale, though just as pretty as when he first met her.

It had been a nice warm day in Paris at the beginning of Summer. Francis had been enjoying himself, out walking around, looking at bakeries and flower shops and such, when he decided to buy ice cream for himself. He bought his ice cream and sat down on a bench, watching tourists who were sightseeing.

Then he saw a girl running down the street, chasing a small dog that had apparently escaped her. He ran over to the dog and snatched it turning to the girl to give it to her.

Francis saw the girl racing towards him and crashing into him, where they both fell on top of each other. The girl stood up, panting slightly, and pulled Francis up. He fell in love immediately. She was perfect, even her slight deficiencies made her better. Her hair was about his length, though in a different style, wavy and golden. And her bright blue green eyes stared at him as she pulled him up with a little difficulty.

"Hi," she said awkwardly. "Thank you for getting my dog. It isn't actually mine, I'm just taking care of it for a friend, and it would be awful if I lost it."

Francis had looked down at her and smiled his best smile, "it is no problem at all. I am just happy I could help such a pretty runner."

She had blushed at his flirting and fidgeted with the edge of her blue skirt. "Ah, thank you. Oh!" She said, looking at his ice cream cone, which had fell on the ground. " Let me buy you a new ice cream as thanks. It's the least I can do."

"It is a deal as long as you join me for it," Francis responded, holding out his hand.

She had stared for a moment before taking his hand and walking with him back to the ice cream shop."

That had been their first date. They had dated for about a month, deeply in love and celebrating the fact they were supposed to go to the same school, until she learned the news she had cancer.

Then everything went to hell, and Joan's health fell apart.

Francis smile recovered quickly and said, "Bonjour, mon amour."

Joan smiled sadly for a moment, before she responded, and they talked happily to each other for the next two hours, until Joan finally said, "Francis."

Francis blinked. "Yes?"

Joan's eyes closed for a moment and Francis thought he may have seen a tear fall down her face.

"I've... had a relapse."

Francis heart stopped, she had been doing better, he knew she had. But...

"Non. Non. It can't be true, please," Francis said, begging her to say she was kidding. But Joan wasn't like that.

"I'm sorry, I told you I was doing better," she whispered.

Francis shook his head, tears beginning to make their way down his face. "Non. Non. It can't be true. You cannot... this can't be happening. I can't let it happen. Mon dieu, I thought it was almost over!"

Joan nodded, crying, "I know, I know, I know! I thought it was over too!"

She finally stopped, and said, "I'm not giving up Francis, I promise. I won't give up. I'll keep fighting for you."

Francis was still crying. It wasn't fair. He had fallen in love at fourteen, and he was scared that he would only have six months with his true love. But he finally recovered enough to say, "I know. And I'll do everything I can to help you. Remember, in just a few weeks I will be going home to visit you and my family for Christmas."

After a couple of moments of silence, Joan said, "I have to go to bed. I love you, Francis."

"I love you too, Joan."

Then the call ended, and Francis closed Skype, and sat back, drained from crying. God help Joan, please, he thought to himself. Please.

 **A/N: Yay! Drama, sadness, and character development!**

 **As always, I love suggestions and reviews! Please!**


	14. Chapter 14

**A/N: Thank you all you great reviewers!**

 **Alright, I know I haven't done much with the country thing in a while, but next chapter will actually involve some of that. And, if all goes well, it will involve a newly revealed, important plot point, so look forward to that.**

 **And a note that this has become the longest story I've remained invested in. I am happy because I have not yet lost interest!**

 **I don't own Hetalia.**

Matthew was vaguely concerned about his cousin, which had become more serious in the weeks since regaining his memory, though he did a very good job of hiding it, so no one else had noticed any change whatsoever.

It was hard for all of them, and the first few weeks had admittedly been a disaster for Matthew, who had started crying at random times, and Gilbert and Alfred had comforted him, though at night Matthew heard Gilbert crying and Alfred had faint bags under his eyes from sleeplessness. And now Gilbert was angry at Matthew for reasons he really couldn't understand, but at least he now had Ned and Yakaterina to talk to sometimes.

Speaking of Ned...

"Hi, Matthew."

"Oh," Matthew said, smiling at the other boy. "Hello. What's new?"

Ned shrugged. "Not much. Do you maybe want to eat with me?"

"Sure," Matthew said, before picking up his tray and Kumajiro, following the other boy to a table across the cafeteria.

They sat down at the almost empty table and Ned began with, "Did you you get new glasses?"

"Oh, yeah. Do you like them? I kind of like these oval ones more than the rectangular ones Alfred has, and maybe it will help stop people from mistaking me for him."

Ned nodded and said, agreeably, "Yeah, they look great on you. They make your eyes really large and cute."

"O-oh," Matthew said, uncomfortable with the compliment. "I ummm... like your new scarf. It's smart for, you know, cold and December."

Ned half smiled, and answered, "Yeah, it was an early Christmas present from Bella. I told her not to spend a lot of money, but, well... Hey, I saw this and got it for you as a little Christmas present. I figured I could just give it to you early."

"Ned reached into his coat pocket and brought out a small hockey stick, much to Matthew's confusion. "It's a pen, see?" Ned pulled off the cap and revealed the pen part. "I know you like hockey so..."

"Oh, thank you Ned! Your so nice! ... But I haven't got you anything! Maybe I could draw you something? I'm not super great, but I could draw a tulip or something," Matthew said, hugging Ned quickly.

Ned smiled fully, looking satisfied. "It's fine, you don't need to do anything for me, but I just felt like I should get this for you. Now, I'm sorry, but I promised Bella I would work on homework with her, so I have to go. Sisters can be so annoying, can't they?"

Matthew just smiled as Ned stood, waving goodbye. He got up too, after a minute, and walked to his room. At moments like this, he could almost forget that he was Canada. And then he was struck by reality.

Pushing open the door, he saw Gilbert, sitting on his bed, tears on his face. Crying was becoming to common among his friends recently. He knew something was wrong g with Francis especially, but the ninth grader just wouldn't say what the hell it was. Matthew ran to Gilbert's side and asked quickly, "What is wrong?"

Gilbert just shook his head, "The memories, zhey just hurt... a lot of fighting." Then he glared up at the blond, his eyes flashing through his tears, as if he suddenly remembered his actual life for a minute. "Not zhat you'd care anyways. Nobody does, really. And I'm scared. I'm not even really a country anymore. I vas unified vith West. And the asshole, Russia, with his goddamned wall..."

Oh. Matthew suddenly remembered that. Don't blame him, half of his own memories were still fuzzy, so how was he supposed to remember everyone else's? "I-I am sorry."

"Like you fucking care. Go flirt vith your Dutch boyfriend, or Ukrainian friend."

Matthew blinked. He didn't like Yakaterina that way, and he only had a sort of crush on Ned, so why was Gilbert being so jealous? And he was actually more attractive and interesting than either...

Okay. Changing the topic before Matthew started blushing.

"No, Gilbert, you are my best friend besides Alfred, and he doesn't count since he is family. I'm not leaving you alone like this. You are only fourteen, you can't deal with being a country on your own."

Gilbert sighed, his tears falling slower. "But you are handling it much better, and you are only twelve, and I want to be strong, Teddy Bear."

Matthew laughed. "If you haven't noticed, I have a slightly less bloody history, and I am pretty much ignoring my problem. It's the best way I can deal, right now."

"Oh. Okay, zhat makes sense. I'm glad ve are talking again."

Matthew smiled. "Me too," he whispered.

* * *

Alfred made his around, wanting to talk to the Nordics, and hoping to avoid his friends. He was kind of in a mood that made him want to avoid Matthew, who would figure out something was wrong and want to talk.

But nothing was wrong, he was just kind of not in the best of moods.

He went to the library and walked to the table that the Nordics had claimed at the beginning of the year. He liked hanging with them, because Tino was really nice and often had cookies, and Matthias was super funny and great, and the others tolerated him, probably because Matthias was even harder to handle.

And because of his complete lack of history with them, except for that he may be Tino's country brother (he still had no clue about that, but they did look very similar, and Finland had been the first to find America), but besides that, he really hadn't interacted with them too much as America.

Alfred was also sort of dealing with an identity crisis. It was hard, okay? He suddenly had the memories of someone who was similar, but still felt kind of different. And being America had seriously messed with any hints of a relationship with Arthur, which sucked, because Alfred really liked him.

"Hey, guys! How are you! Mind if I sit and talk to you people just for a bit?" He looked at Matthias, mostly, who was the self-proclaimed leader of the group.

Matthias grinned and high fived him. "Of course, Icey was just talking about how he made a new little friend. Hong Kong, was it?"

Alfred sat down next to Tino, who waved cheerfully, before listening in.

"His name isn't Hong Kong. He is named Kaoru. And he is really interesting."

Lukas shook his head, and Alfred recalled that the two were brothers or something. "I won't let you hang out with some older kid I don't know. I forbid it."

"You can't use age as an excuse! Everyone here is older than me! And he isn't even that much, he is just a couple months! And just because you don't know him doesn't mean anything!"

The bickering went on between the two brothers, while the others decided to move on. Tino looked at Alfred and said, his voice hushed, "how are you coping with being a country, Alfred?"

"Ummm... Okay? Yeah, okay!" And Alfred asked, desperate to change the focus off of him, "What about you, Tino?"

Tino smiled, "It is very difficult, but Sve has been helping me, and I, with him."

"You two are like an old married couple!" Matthias laughed, making Lukas briefly be distracted from the argument to hit Matthias upside the head. "Hey!"

Berwald just looked at Alfred, but it didn't scare Alfred like it did most people. He thought that Ivan's creepy stares were much more intimidating (he may or may not have joked about the space face at some point).

After a few more minutes of chitchat, Alfred finally said goodbye and walked away, humming to himself, and feeling much better.

Back at his and Arthur's room he discovered Arthur wasn't there, which he was glad about. He just wanted to be alone for a bit, that was all. And he had to work on the present...

Yes, he had gotten a present for Arthur. It had just seemed perfect when he saw it, and couldn't wait to give it to him.

At least, if things weren't so awkward.

But maybe this would fix it!

Except for being a country. It couldn't fix that. He had asked the others how far their memories went, but most said that it went up to a specific day, except for Arthur's, who had gone up to just a few days before the end of the others memories. But everyone was still trying so hard to remember what had happened, and Alfred figured they would hopefully get it soon.

But meanwhile...

Alfred pulled the box out from under his bed and scanned the contents, tweaking each item to make it perfect, just like it should. It wasn't actually gonna take much work, but whatever.

He wanted the awkwardness to go away and for it to be like when they kissed... which neither had mentioned in a month.

Alfred knew it was sort of weird, what with England being America's caretaker. But he wasn't quite America. And Arthur wasn't quite England.

And that, was that.

 **A/N: I've decided to split our main characters into groups on how they deal with being countries:**

 **Tries to just ignore the problem and wait for something else to happen: Antonio, Matthew, and Feliciano**

 **Wants to deal with the problem head on, but end up having some emotional issues: Arthur, Alfred, Lovino and Gilbert**

 **Accepts it, and just sometimes directly think about it: Francis, Kiku, and Ludwig**

 **So, that is basically my idea of how the characters would react, however, those who are ignoring the problem are only trying to deal with it for themselves before they try to figure everything out.**

 **Anyways, thank you, again,those who reviewed last chapter, and please review and give me any advice you have on this chapter!**


	15. Chapter 15- Winter Break Part One

**A/N: Hi guys!**

 **Sorry I am updating a bit later than usual, but I have just been busy...**

 **But here I have another chapter! And there is a huge plot twist (and an actual name for the chapter...)**

 **So, anyways, I do not own Hetalia.**

 _ **Winter Break Part One:**_

Lovino was miserable. Not for any really good reason, he just was.

Maybe it was that ridiculous scavenger hunt Antonio had set. It had taken him all month to get through it, and he was on the final clue. It just said, "Meet me at the library at our favorite time". What the hell did that mean?! Of course Antonio would come up with some stupid shit like that. Of course.

He didn't have a favorite time. So what the hell was it? Two in the afternoon? Eight in the morning? He had no idea.

And there was only one more day before winter break, and, though Lovino was staying at the school, Antonio wasn't. And he was gonna miss that idiot bastard, though he totally wasn't gonna admit it. Nope, never.

The dumb fuck just had to go to Spain for Christmas, like the good Catholic he was. Though he probably wasn't that religious, or at least hopefully, as Lovino was in love with him.

Anyways, he had to figure out this stupid scavenger hunt before Antonio left.

So, he did the only thing he could think of. Try to bug the shit out of Antonio. And threaten him, by saying that his part of Italy was influenced by the mafia. And that he would set them on the ninth grader, if he didn't tell him what he was supposed to do.

"But Lovi~," Antonio would just say, "that would ruin the surprise!"

Lovino kept responding with, "But I hate dumb surprises! So tell me or I swear to God I will force to to tell me."

This, surprisingly didn't intimidate Antonio. He would just laugh at Lovino and say, "Awwww, you are so cute when you're angry! Your cheeks get all red like a little tomato!"

"Ciao, fratello! How are you?"

Lovino broke out of his thoughts, and turned to his little brother. "Ciao, Feli. I am good. Just this dumb scavenger hunt the tomato bastard set me on is driving me nuts. I mean, for heaven's sake, what is 'our favorite time'?"

"Ve~, maybe it isn't like a time time, maybe it is a time as in class? Do you have any classes with Antonio?" Feliciano said after a moment's thought.

Wow. Who knew that Feliciano could come up with ideas like that. "That... May work... I can think of one class..." the one class he could think of was music. Which was right after this ten minute break between classes. He had been practicing the guitar all semester, and yesterday had been the playing test, where he got a 89%. Not perfect, but still pretty good. And today he was going to have to skip class to head up to the library.

"Ve~ I had better get going! Bye fratello!" Feliciano sang write in the middle of Lovino's thought process.

"Okay. See you later."

Feliciano skipped off, and Lovino slowly walked to the library. It was almost empty, thanks to the fact class was starting in two minutes. He stood there, waiting impatiently. Where the hell was Antonio?

At last, five minutes after the bell rang, the Spanish boy walked up behind Lovino (who had been pacing) and hugged him. "Hola, mi tomate! You found it out! Now, let us talk before I have to leave, which is in about a half hour!"

Lovino spun around, shrieking, "What the fuck! What is wrong with-"

And he paused, because he was now nose to nose with Antonio, and staring straight into his sparkling green eyes. Antonio grinned wider, and for a moment Lovino thought they might, just might, kiss. Sadly, Antonio pulled away and said, "Well, here is your reward! Churros, and a little plushie turtle for Christmas!"

Lovino was shocked for two reasons: one, he did not get kissed, and two, he had presents?!

But, this meant, this meant... Antonio didn't like him in that way. Fuck. He needed to rethink his life. "Thanks a lot," he grumbled.

Antonio's face fell dramatically. "Lovi, what's wrong? Do you (gasp) not like churros?"

"No, it's nothing like that. There is nothing wrong. I'm super happy and shit. Thanks for the dumb scavenger hunt." Lovino tried not to sound bitter, but he couldn't keep it from seeping into his voice. He turned and began walking away.

Antonio ran after him, still holding the churros and turtle, "Lovi, Lovi, what's wrong?!"

Lovino spun around and shouted, feeling ruined, "I liked you, you damn idiot! I've liked you since the first day of school, since back when we were countries, and I thought, maybe, you could like me back! But that is obviously wrong!"

Antonio grabbed the Italian and forced him to look at him. "No, no, I do like you! I really really like you! But I didn't want to tell you!"

Lovino suddenly felt some hope, "R-really?" He said, and he was definitely NOT crying a bit.

Antonio smiled sheepishly, "You really didn't notice? Well, if you like me too..." he grabbed Lovino's head and forced their heads together. It was mildly uncomfortable for a minute, but then they both grew used to it, and kissed for a good two minutes.

Finally, Antonio pulled away, and said, "Well, that was nice."

"Yeah," Lovino agreed, before he realised what he had said and quickly added, "don't think I'll do it again... unless you want to?"

"Si, but unfortunately... I have to go. They are taking me to the airport to fly to Spain. This will be weird, now that I know I am also Spain. But, I would love to do that again... once I get back. I'm going to miss you, Lovi. See you in two weeks."

"See you, bastard. And don't ever think about kissing someone else, or I will kill both of you."

Antonio laughed, and hugged Lovino, "I wouldn't dream of it. Adios!"

And the ninth grader ran down the hall, leaving Lovino, who just sat in shock of what just happened.

* * *

Arthur woke up on Christmas to Alfred dancing on his bed. This was not too unusual.

But normally Alfred wasn't screaming the lyrics to jingle bells.

After punishing Alfred (he may or may not have thrown a dictionary at him) he got dress in something more relaxed than usual, meaning jeans and a green sweater, and forced Alfred to get dressed as well, who, just to annoy him, dressed in the exact same clothes, but with a red sweater.

"But Artieeeeee, we match this way!"

"I don't want to match you, you bloody idiot!"

Alfred stuck out his tongue, and tossed a box at Arthur, who managed to catch it. "Here's your present, Limey!"

Arthur tossed an American football to Alfred as his present, and opened up the box. He gasped as he pulled out a purple unicorn stuffed animal, and hugged it, and asking, "Didn't I give you a unicorn a few years ago for your birthday, as America, or something?"

"Yeah, Well I don't think I'm the exact same as America, but yes. I also remember that I couldn't ever see her, even though I kept feeding her and such," said Alfred, who looked somehow insulted by Arthur saying that. "I tried to make her more like the pictures of my unicorn, which you had drawn for me, so what do you think?"

Arthur grinned and hugged the soft animal. "Its perfect."

Alfred stood up and stretched, announcing, "Hey, I am heading down to breakfast, are you coming?"

After a fun breakfast, with over half the school missing (of his group of friends it was only himself, Alfred, Matthew, Lovino, and Feliciano remaining, everyone else had gone home), it was time for Arthur's brother to come and visit. Arthur and his parents were not exactly on the best of terms. So, instead of him coming home, his little six year old brother, was aloud to visit for a few hours.

Peter was also a country too, apparently. Sealand, a micronation.

When Peter showed up it was great, and they both exchanged presents, and he had to explain the fact that they were countries to him, and ask if he knew anything about it, and then they played in the snow for a few hours with the rest of Arthur's friends.

And then Peter had to go home, and Arthur hugged him, thanking him for such a fun day and hoping that he could visit again soon, and then Arthur was by himself, since all of his friends were contacting their guardians just to talk.

He sat alone in his room, blankly flipping through his books to see if anything appealed to him. Nothing did.

He picked up the unicorn and wondered what had happened to her in real life. And what about Flying Mint Bunny and all the others?

"Hello, England! Long time no see!"

Arthur whipped around to see a fluffy mint colored bunny with wings fly over to him, and she nuzzled his face while he stood in shock. "Flying Mint Bunny! Where have you been?"

"You told me that I wouldn't be able to contact you for awhile, so I came the minute you wondered where I was!" she sang, and Arthur felt a million times better.

"I'm so happy to see you! I was just worried that something had happened to you!"

They talked happily for a few minutes, until something offered to Arthur. "Hey, do you know how I went from being England to being a kid?" Flying Mint Bunny looked nervous, and was about to answer when Alfred walked in.

"Hi Arthur! Guess what, my parents totally want to meet you, they think that you sound great based on what I told them. So, what have you been doing all this time?" The seventh grader asked, cheerfully collapsing on his bed and picking up the American football to inspect it again.

Arthur glanced at Flying Mint Bunny, and then remembered America had never been able to see her. "Oh, not much. Just trying to catch up on some reading, that's all. I ate lunch, too," he waited for that to strike some cord with the American, who's life revolved around food.

Instead he just shrugged, and said, "I'm going to hold out and wait for dinner, since that's supposed to be a big meal, and it sounds really good, at least from what Feliciano said. It probably is, since they asked him to help make it."

After a few more minutes of trying to convince Alfred to leave, Arthur finally decided that he could just leave, himself. "I'm going to go for a walk by myself, so see you in a bit."

"Okay, have a good time or whatever," Alfred said, cheerfully, glancing up from his iPod.

Arthur ran out the door, and down the hall, until he finally thought he was a good distance away and turned to Flying Mint Bunny, who looked nervous now. "So, how did me and my friends end up as kids?"

"I-I'm not supposed to tell you," she squeaked.

Arthur frowned and tried again, "No. Tell me how the hell we ended up as students."

Flying Mint Bunny shook her head. "No, I can't tell you!"

"Flying Mint Bunny, how did we get here?!"

Flying Mint Bunny finally caved, and she said, "You did it! It was you who did it! You with your magic!"

 **A/N: This will all be explained next chapter...**

 **I want to know, did anyone predict this? Just tell me if you did...**

 **And I love reviews and suggestions, and I know that was kind of out of nowhere, but I promise it will make sense soon!**

 **So, please review and give me any suggestions you have! I love it when you do, and they are my main motivation!**


	16. Chapter 16

**A/N: I am super sorry it took this long to update, but I have been busy in life, and my school starts next week, which is sad.**

 **Here we see backstories, and next chapter will be Winter Break Part Two.**

 **No, I have not suddenly started owning Hetalia.**

England was tired and lonely. Tired of everyone. And at the same time he wanted somebody to talk to. It was the worst feeling ever. He had just recently lost Hong Kong, and he felt like the British Empire was collapsing. Or, it had already collapsed. He honestly could not tell anymore.

He wandered around the halls of the World Summit building, and did not know where he was going. He had forgotten. He saw America, and walked slowly over to the table he was sitting at, not even knowing why. How would the idiot American make him feel any better? He normally only made him feel worse about himself.

"Greetings, America. How are you?" England said, his voice empty.

America looked up at him, noticing England for the first time since he had been drawing a comic or something, for all England knew he could have been drawing up plans for war. "Yo. Do you want something? I'm kind of busy."

England sighed. Of course you are busy, drawing comics and whatnot. "Not anything really. I just..." England paused for a brief moment, "why did you want to leave me so badly?"

America stared at him in surprise. England didn't need to wonder why. He had always tried to avoid discussing when America had been a colony. "Um..." America racked his brain, running through what he knew was going on in his former guardian's country. Oh, right. He had lost... "Hong Kong just got returned to China, hasn't he?"

"Yes." England wanted to go. Why was he talking to America, again?

America stared flatly at England, to England's surprise, and there was none of his usual cheerfulness. "Because you were holding me back, and putting up unfair taxes, and not treating me like an adult country. That's why. You do that to a lot of your colonies. Not the exact same way, but you did treat India horribly, and you should know that already."

This sent England reeling. It wasn't his fault! How had he done anything wrong? For the first time, England felt a definitive emotion: Anger. "Well, that wasn't my fault, strictly speaking," he said, heatedly.

America suddenly stood up, his eyes flashing, "Yes. It. Is. Why don't you think so? We all have admitted to making mistakes, so why the hell are you unable to? Why don't you give a damn about how you have treated people and tried to start over? The rest of us have, and we are still trying to live it down. I know that Germany is still beating himself up for the holocaust, and isn't he doing much better? But. You. Never. Change."

England held up his arms, trying vaguely to defend himself from the words. He tried desperately to change the subject. "Why are you so angry right now, America?"

America looked at him, his expression softening, and said, "My country is just dealing with some... issues. That's all. You really shouldn't care."

England's eyes stung, and he wondered if he was going to cry. That would suck to do in front of America, so he turned away and walked off, loneliest than ever.

That day he talked to several countries, with varying results. But he felt with all of them that he had somehow ruined any relationships with them at some point or another.

And he wanted to start over.

That night, in the privacy of his home (which was large and impressive, like most of the countries, though there were a few, like America, who lived in an apartment, that preferred small houses), he opened up one of his many spell books, and looked for a spell that would fit his parameters. Finally he read a spell similar enough, and with his extensive knowledge of magic, gained over many centuries, he was able to tweak it so that it would work.

Then Flying Mint Bunny came, and he told her that he wouldn't be able to talk to her for several years, but that she could return if he ever thought about her after next week. She agreed, not questioning his judgement, and promised to watch after England's other magic friends, as well as the other members of the Magic Trio's friends.

England went into the Magic room, and drew the pentagram on the floor and lit the correct candles, and chanted.

After the spell was completed, and the glowing disappeared, England set off, knowing there were still things he needed to do before he sort of died, which was in about a week.

A week passed, and England waited eagerly as his last hours disappeared, wondering what it would feel like to die, and then be reborn. Hopefully, once he was reborn his horrible relationships with his companions could be fixed. Or something like that. He honestly didn't know, but at least SOMETHING would change.

Within what he figured was the last few minutes, there was a knock on his door and opened it to see Norway and Romania, who walked in without waiting for an invitation. Once they entered, England closed the door, and Norway started speaking. "We know you did something, and we want to know what it was. It has been building up all week, and I was able to ignore it until now, but this is big. What is it?"

"I'm not telling you, and even if I did, it's too late anyways for you two to do anything," England said smugly. He had been expecting this at some point, and was only glad it hadn't happened earlier in the week, otherwise they might have been able to change it.

Romania narrowed his dark eyes. "Come on England, we know you did something, so why not let us know?"

A ringing started in England's ears, and he knew that it would be any minute now, so why not tell them? "Fine, I'll tell you. We are going to die, all of us."

The other two froze, and England was satisfied to see an actual expression on Norway's face, one of shock and fear. "You're joking," Romania spoke first. "Please say you're joking."

"No," England shook his head. "All the countries are going to die, but don't worry. We are going to be reborn."

The edges of England's vision started going fuzzy. Maybe a minute left, though probably less. Norway stared. "You aren't lying. What the hell is wrong with you?"

England smiled softly, his eyes filling with sadness, his vision completely black. "I need a chance to start over. And I know I can't do that with things how they are."

His head spun, and he barely registered the fact that he fell to the floor, and that Norway and Romania had fallen next to him. Then he lost consciousness, and essentially died, his body dissolving.

* * *

Arthur Kirkland was born on April 23, in a town just outside of London. His parents were named Alice and Markus Kirkland, and they honestly did not like their son, because Arthur was too different from what they wanted. They had wanted him to be strong and athletic, like his dad, but instead he was small and thin, and preferred reading instead of most sports, though he did enjoy football (also referred to as soccer), though wasn't much of a competitor. He also had a younger brother, as well as several older siblings, but his parents only seemed to hate him, and so he began to fight them, until they eventually grew tired of him and sent him to boarding school, forbidding him to come home until summer, and even then he was expected to act non existent.

* * *

Matthew Williams was born on July 1, three days before his much more outgoing cousin. He lived with his mom and dad in Canada until he was eight, when his parents died, and he was forced to move in with his aforementioned outgoing cousin and his family. He carried around a stuffed animal polar bear everywhere, even to school, which eventually led to some problems with bullies and some criticism. However, his cousin defended him and he spent the next four years as his only friends being the polar bear and his cousin (though the cousin caused some problems as he was often mistaken for him).

* * *

Lovino and Feliciano Vargas (who were born on the same day, March 17, though there was a year difference) grew up as orphans in Italy, and lived with their grandfather, Romulus Vargas, who also homeschooled them. Feliciano was babied due largely to the fact that he was very sweet and innocent, but Lovino was not, since he was older and more shy and foul mouthed to everyone, even those who tried to act kindly towards him, mostly because he felt threatened and believed that everyone who treated him kindly were only after his grandfather's money. They were both very artistic and good cooks, though they both disliked most physical activity, except for running, which they were very good at.

* * *

Ludwig and Gilbert Beilschmidt grew up in Germany, and Gilbert taught Ludwig pretty much everything. Gilbert was friends for most of his life with Elizabeta Hedervary, though for a large part of it thought that she was a boy (Elizabeta was still dealing with some gender issues). He also met Antonio Fernandez Carriedo and Francis Bonnefoy at school, where they became inseparable. Ludwig was always very guarded and shy, and most people were mildly intimidated by him, so he did not have many friends for a long time.

* * *

Antonio Fernandez Carriedo grew up in Spain, and he lived happily with his parents, and enjoyed playing the guitar and just being generally carefree.

* * *

Alfred F Jones (no one but him and his parents actually know what the F stands for) was born three days after his much quieter cousin, who came to live with him when they were both eight, and Alfred became very protective, wanting to help him and be a hero to him. They slept in the same room in Alfred's house in the state Wisconsin, and for the first few months Alfred and Matthew slept in the same bed since Matthew kept having nightmares. Alfred's heroism led to him being nearly an outcast in school, but he continued to stick with his cousin and made few friends, though he was very engaged in sports and science clubs. He enjoyed pretending to be more clueless than he actually was because it led him to being underestimated, but he was in fact very smart. One of his few friends was a Japanese boy named Kiku Honda.

* * *

Francis Bonnefoy was born in Paris, France and enjoyed romance ever since he was very young, though his parents divorce when he was six. He flirted with people in the general hope of falling in love, but only succeeded in falling in love in the summer after eighth grade.

* * *

Kiku Honda was born in Japan, and moved to America when he was nine. He became friends with Alfred F Jones in some strange attraction of opposites. He enjoyed anime and fanfiction, and enjoyed writing fanfiction just as much as reading it.

 **A/N: So, I haven't received any reviews lately, which sucks, and I totally want you to review more! If you do I will give you my eternal gratefulness.**

 **I honestly do not know what trouble America is having, but, being an American citizen, there are many problems, so don't look much into that. Also, this is definitely a modern day fic, but I did not want to give it a specific year in case if people (*gasp*) read it after this year, so just assume it is the year it is currently.**


	17. Chapter 17- Winter Break Part Two

**A/N: Hi! So, I want to explain that I will have to go to school on Monday, and that will make it somewhat difficult to get chapters out very often, but I am still going to try!**

 **In this chapter it involves Francis and Joan, but I want to explain that in their dialogue it should all be French, but I don't speak French and it would probably be annoying other people who don't speak French if everything they are saying is in that language.**

 **I don't own Hetalia, and I really think it goes without saying, what with me writing fanfiction for it.**

 _ **Winter Break Part Two:**_

Arthur gagged when Flying Mint Bunny said that. And then he remembered what had been the missing gap that separated him from the others, and knew she wasn't lying.

He... had caused this? And for what? To change things? At least that had worked. He looked at Flying Mint Bunny and reached out and hugged her. Tears had started to trickle down his face. He was such an idiot. Everyone would hate him when they found out. And then it would go back to the way it was before all this. And he did not want that to happen.

So, Arthur would have to prevent that from happening. He would make sure that they wouldn't find out, wouldn't remember the last few minutes before they died, because he knew that most of them could recognise magic when it was strong enough to kill and resurrect people who were supposed to be almost immortal. Maybe...

He could try to keep them from figuring out anything else. That would work, probably. And then... what?

He dried his eyes and Flying Mint Bunny flew back into the air and began apologising, "I'm sorry, I wasn't supposed to tell you, but you made me! I'm sorry, I'm so so so sorry!"

Arthur was numb. But he still needed to comfort Flying Mint Bunny and said, "It's okay, I made you do this, so it isn't your fault and don't even begin to think it is."

Flying Mint Bunny smiled, which would probably be terrifying on most rabbits, but fortunately Flying Mint Bunny could pull it off because otherwise Arthur would never talk to her again. "You seem different now, England..."

Arthur sighed, "It is probably age difference. When I died I was... twenty-two? Twenty-three? Regardless, since I am only thirteen... well, there should obviously be some differences."

"No, I knew you when you were physically thirteen, and you were still different. Remember? That was just a few years before you found America," Flying Mint Bunny said, though this didn't make any sense to Arthur. "What do you plan on doing now?"

Arthur shrugged, "Try to keep them from figuring any of it out. That's all I can think of."

Arthur talked to Flying Mint Bunny for a while longer, until he felt ready to go back to his room. There he found Alfred still on his iPod, and the younger looked up from his bed where he was sprawled out and grinned, saying "You were gone for quite a while. How was your walk?"

"Good," Arthur said, quickly, feeling almost the same awkward way toward Alfred as when he had learned they were countries, though the memory itself fit he still felt guilty.

Alfred flipped over so he was looking at Arthur upside down. "So, dinner is pretty soon, and I figured maybe we could check out the food and get first dibs. There will only be about fifty students as some kids are having dinner out or whatever, but we should still call the best food! I'm starving!"

"I guess there isn't anything better for me to do," Arthur said, and Alfred's smile dropped at his uninterested words, though he quickly recovered and grabbed Arthur and dragged him out of the room, while Arthur screamed at him. This seemed to be normal for the two of them.

After they reached the cafeteria and saw that the cooks and student assistant cooks were setting up, they had nothing to do but find their table and sit, waiting. It was very boring.

Alfred kept talking on and on about anything and everything, and finally, just when Arthur thought his ears were going to start bleeding, Lovino walked up, Matthew trailing behind him, distracted by whatever book he was reading and still walking. Matthew gracefully tripped and crashed into Lovino, and both of them fell on top of Alfred and Arthur and they all started laughing, even Lovino, who was uncharacteristically happy, though Arthur didn't know why.

"I'm sorry, I didn't mean to, it's just this is a really good book... it was my favorite as a kid..." Matthew apologised between his giggles, and stood up, still laughing.

Feliciano walked up at that moment carrying a plate full of food and Alfred stood up without a word and ran to get some, though the others didn't mind waiting a bit at all. "Ve~ what happened? Why is fratello laughing?"

Arthur grinned, and finally stopped laughing to say, "You just happened to miss a great dog pile, that's all."

Lovino stood up, and realised he was still smiling and went back to his customary frown, though his eyes still looked bright and happy, "Fuck you all, I am going to go get some food since it seems like they are FINALLY serving real Italian food. Thank god they asked you to help cook, Feli."

Arthur nodded and followed Lovino to the food, and Matthew followed after him.

After the dinner that was perfect, they played games and stayed up, watching the Disney movies that Alfred's parents had gotten and Arthur was able to blocked out his new knowledge, rather enjoying listening to Alfred and Feliciano, and even Matthew, once, singing to the Disney songs, and mocking Alfred for when his voice cracked during a higher note of Under The Sea.

And it wasn't until they finally got into bed that Arthur finally felt sad and guilty again about what had happened, even though it was several years ago.

* * *

It was the day after New Years, two days before Francis had to go back to school. He had been staying at his Mother's, but spending all of his free time at the hospital where Joan was now staying. He would just sit for hours and talk to her, until her voice became quiet and raspy and he made her rest despite her protests, and hug her and feel how thin she had become.

It physically hurt him sometimes to see her. Over Skype you really didn't see everything, and Francis realised how bad she actually was, her eyes were hollow and had dark circles beneath them, her skin was translucent, and her beautiful hair was dull and no longer as light as it had been in the summer when he first had seen her running with the small dog. But he still loved her.

Of course he did. It would make him the worst person in the world if he didn't.

He had been sitting in silence next to her in her bed, arm around her shoulder as she read her book aloud to him, as a distraction from how tired she obviously was. It was a good book, some American classic, and so they were able to sit for over an hour while Joan read.

Joan finally stopped, and she leaned her head back against her pillow, and she sighed, her eyes closed. Francis asked, "What is wrong?"

Joan shook her head. "Nothing, I am just tired all the time now... And..." she trailed off, her eyes becoming slightly unfocused as her thoughts consumed her. Francis kissed her gently. He hated having to leave soon, hated that she was sick, but he couldn't say any of that, because it would make Joan sad and apologetic.

And she seriously couldn't afford to become sadder, so Francis acted like he was fine, because it probably wouldn't help her to know that her boyfriend was an emotional wreck because of her. Joan still seemed cheerful and hopeful, though Francis noticed that she was worse than when he had first come for winter break.

After she apparently fell asleep for half an hour some nurses came and checked her, like they had two hours before and two hours before that. It only took a few minutes, but it irked Francis that he couldn't just be alone with her, though that was pretty greedy of him, since he stayed even past visiting hours had ended.

These checks always made Joan even more tired than she had before, and that also annoyed Francis, because shouldn't the nurses make her feel better? But he still was able to restrain himself from speaking, for Joan's sake.

After they left a doctor came, much to Francis' surprise. This had not happened before. "Excuse me sir, could you leave while I run some extra tests and speak with Miss Joan in private?" The Doctor said, guiding Francis out the door.

"Okay, but I will be back as soon as you are done," Francis responded as he passed through the doorway, it being firmly shut behind him.

Francis didn't know what else to do, so he placed up and down the hall, until he realised that he was hungry, since he had skipped breakfast to come to the hospital early, and it was almost evening. He went to the entrance where he grabbed a croissant and a cup of coffee and walked back to Joan's door. He leaned against the wall next to it and ate the croissant and drank the instant coffee, and then went back to his pacing.

Finally, finally, the doctor left the room and he rushed back in to see Joan leaning back, her eyes closed and tears making wet trails down her face. "Joan? Joan? Are you okay?"

She blinked open her eyes and held out her arms, and Francis ran over to her and hugged her before sitting down beside her and grabbed her book, because he knew that she would tell him about whatever it was that was making her sad, and scared to find out. He read aloud this time, letting Joan rest her head against his shoulder. Finally, Joan interrupted him. "I feel so unoriginal, dying of sickness. In this book, Beth does, and then in other books, like that Fault in Our Stars one, the boy also dies of cancer. I always thought I would go out spectacularly, or at the least die of old age."

Francis turned to her and registered something, "You are not going to die, not for years. You will get better and we will get through school and then live together, and you can choose to die spectacularly or to wait until you die of old age, but you are not dying now. Remain hopeful, and then we can see that you get better, and then you can come to my school with me a land we will be happy, together," he said, desperation creeping into his voice, when part way through his speech she had just sighed and leaned against him again, and he saw the tears on her face again.

She smiled sadly at him, "That doctor today... He came because something was wrong, something that shouldn't be. He told me that what he was testing for, if it was there, would mean that I was going to die. He was very kind, but he still said it very straight to the point, and said that in about a week they would know, though there was an eighty percent chance of me having it. I don't want to die, I want to do all of the things I dreamed of, but I know that is probably impossible. I-I thought that I could make it, and then I could stay with you, but I guess I can't," she explained.

Francis sat in shock, before finally saying, "No, you cannot give up. There is still a twenty percent chance, and those are decent odds, so you can fight through this," he let out a shaky breath, wanting to still look fine, "I will stay with you up until an hour before my flight to go back to school, and then you will need to call me if anything ANYTHING happens. Now, let's finish this book," and Francis started reading again, trying to pretend he wasn't crying.

 **A/N: I seriously never guessed that this fic would be over twenty thousand words, much less thirty, but I guess considering the plot it does have to be pretty long.**

 **So, the book that Matthew was reading when he tripped is the original Winnie the Pooh, because I read this Headcanon that England had Winnie the Pooh based off of Canada and Kumajiro.**

 **I will also be forever grateful if someone guessed which book Joan and Francis were reading together.**

 **And, finally, please review! I love reviews so much and they do seriously motivate you more than almost anything.**


	18. Chapter 18

**A/N: I am so sorry at taking this long! My school has started and I aalready have homework, which is horrible.**

 **On a much happier note, this story has over a thousand visitors now! And this is super exciting for me, because people are reading this.**

 **Finally, CanadianBirdie guessed correctly that the American book Joan was reading was Little Women, because it was my favorite book as a kid.**

 **I do not own Hetalia.**

Gilbert returned to school with West the day before school began again, and immediately went hunting for a) Elizabeta or b) Matthew, and not really having a preference of who he found first. He saw Matthew first, walking down the hall with Kumajiro in his arms and Gilbert's heart (no matter how un-awesome it sounds) literally skipped a beat. Damn, he had forgotten how cute 'his' Teddy Bear looked. And God his butt looked good from where Gilbert was standing. Gilbert had come to terms over break with the fact that his attention was steadily drifting from Eliza to Matthew, and now fully enjoyed it.

Which reminded him of the present he had bought for the Canadian. He ran down the hall and literally tackle hugged Matthew, and they tumbled to the ground, Matthew gasping from Gilbert crushing his thin frame. "G-Gilbert?" He asked.

Gilbert laughed and said, "Zhe one and only! And I have an awesome present for you Teddy Bear!" Handing Matthew the paper package the present was wrapped in and pulling him up, smirking.

Matthew half smiled and took the gift, pulling off the paper to reveal a soft white hat with bear ears on it, and stammered out, "T-thank you Gil... It looks really cute!"

Gilbert laughed and said, "Now you can look even more like a teddy bear!" Matthew carefully put the polar bear hat on and smiled shyly at Gilbert, who felt red flooding his pale cheeks. Oh God he was adorable. Gilbert turned away to hide his blush and said quickly, "I have to go. I'm glad you like the present. See you later I guess."

He then practically ran away, and collapsed on his bed backwards, the image of Matthew in the hat still burned into his retinas. Then he groaned when he realised how un-awesome he had acted and flipped over onto his stomach and hurried his head in his pillow and screamed, Gilibird chirping in alarm, even though it was muffled. He stayed that way for a while, until his blush finally faded enough that his face wasn't burning.

He would go find Matthew. Yeah, that's what he should do. He stood up and adjusted his rumpled My Chemical Romance shirt and placed his typical smirk back onto his face. Then he opened the door and left the room to go find his crush.

He roamed the halls for a good fifteen minutes before he heard Matthew's voice. And he froze when he heard Ned's voice with Matthew's. Of course, being the awesome person he was, Gilbert took this wonderful opportunity to fine tune his spying abilities. "Did you have a good break?"

Matthew answered, "yeah, the school felt really empty but I liked it, though I did miss you a lot."

"Yeah, I missed you, too. And I decided to ask you something... And I put a lot of thought into it and I decided to go for it..."

Gilbert's stomach plummeted. What was this goddamned asshole want to ask HIS motherfucking Teddy Bear?

"Wh-what is it?" He heard Matthew say, and he could just imagine the confusion on his perfect feminine face.

After a pause, Gilbert heard Ned respond. "I have been thinking about this for some very long time, like I said, and I just wanted to ask... if you might want to go out with me? I have really liked you for months, and with the new memories, I guess for decades, and I just wanted to know if maybe you like me in the same way?"

Gilbert was going to walk out there and punch that Dutch idiot in the face, when he heard Matthew speak. "I like you too, Ned..." Gilbert's heart froze and shattered and he knew what was coming next. "But I have a crush on someone else. I am sorry and want to still be friends, but I don't like you in that way. MAybe you can ask again later, eh?"

Gilbert was confused. Another person? What was this? Was Matthew falling for Yakaterina? Or someone else? Francis had flirted with him a lot, but had Matthew fallen for him, even though Francis was with Joan? He heard Ned's voice and paused his thinking to hear him say, "Alright. I will try again in maybe a year and see if you have changed your mind, and I do still want to talk to you and be your friend. I am going to go now. Bye, see you around."

Then Gilbert heard Matthew's footsteps coming towards the corner he was hiding behind and ran back to their room, just having enough time to collapse onto his bed and pretend to be reading, when Matthew pushed open the door and walked in, laying on his bed too and sighing. Gilbert glanced over at him, and saw him cuddling Kumajiro, looking sad and guilty, the polar bear hat on his head.

* * *

Ludwig sighed as he lay on his bed, staring up at the ceiling deep in thought. He had seen Feliciano alone earlier and could see the older kids eyeing him as if he was prey. He really couldn't deal with the older kids on his own, and he could also not stick with Feli all the time, so he had no idea what the hell he was supposed to do.

He had asked Kiku, and the Japanese boy readily offered to watch after Feliciano when Ludwig was busy, but, though Kiku had protested that he could take care of himself, he did not believe that the bullies would mind hurting both of them.

This left Ludwig in somewhat of a dilemma. He needed to figure out how to help Feliciano, but he also needed to save some bits of his failing social life outside of his group of friends. He found himself increasingly only spending time with Feli and Kiku, and though they were great friends, he also wanted to stay friends with Vash and... well he had talked to some others, but now it was only Feliciano.

And... he kind of wanted to make new friends... but at this rate it seemed impossible. Ludwig stretched and stood up, smoothing the wrinkles out of his clothes. Maybe he could visit... who was there...

He walked out the door, feeling excessively lonely. Than he heard two voices coming towards him and whipped around to see Feliks and Toris walking in his direction. Feli's stopped when they came closer and said, "Hi Ludwig. We are like so freaking bored, so do you want to maybe hang out with us. You are totally handsome and buff, and you are sure to like definitely make things interesting for me and Liet."

Toris face palmed and then said, "Hello Ludwig. Feliks, you can't talk to people like that! You need to think about other people and not make comments of that sort."

"It's fine guys. And I would actually like to talk to you," Ludwig said quickly to the pair.

Feliks snapped his perfectly manicured fingers (ninety-five percent of the girls were in awe of both his fashion sense and his fingernails) and said, "Well then, Liet you are totally wrong. Let's like go outside or something," and marched off, his shoes clicking against the floor.

Once they were outside, Toris asked, "Is something wrong Ludwig? You don't look very happy."

Ludwig decided that he could trust these two, mostly because they were both nice, albeit odd, people. "I am just always worried about Feliciano. And then in worrying about him I can't talk to anyone else. The only reason I can be out here now is that he is with his brother."

"So?" Feliks said, and Toris slapped his hand over the shorter boy's mouth, and Feliks shoved away, repeating, "So? If you love the kid then it really shouldn't matter. If you don't, ditch him, and I am sure some other person will snap him up. Like, I wouldn't even mind going after him, if I wasn't so goddamned in love with Liet there. Don't even know why sometimes, but I do not mind only talking to him, like ever."

Ludwig thought for a moment and seethed at the mental image of Feliciano with somebody else. "I understand... I think I will go find him..." And the German seventh grader left, leaving the other two behind.

"God, Feliks," Toris murmured, "You are good at this stuff."

Feliks smirked, satisfied with his work in helping Ludwig. "And you like totally love me for it."

 **A/N: So, I am still going to try to update as much as possible, but please be patient since I need to get used to school again.**

 **And please review, since I know that people are reading this just take an extra minute to write a review, and I will try to respond to it, since I love reviews so much.**


	19. Chapter 19

**A/N: Sorry about the wait, but I was ridiculously busy this week, what with school where I got homework on the first day, and with working for my art teacher at her studio. But something that actually made me happy is that I was able to name twenty-six European countries in my history class (the student who got second most only had about twelve), just because of Hetalia, and literally none of the other students had even heard of Lichtenstein and Belarus. So that is one good thing for school.**

 **And, of course, as soon as I reach a thousand visitors for this fic, the counter thing breaks so I have no idea how many people have read this.**

 **I do not, and at this rate probably will not, ever own Hetalia.**

Alfred wanted to know what was bugging Artie.

Seriously, he was acting so much more distant than usual, and Alfred had thought things had been going pretty well between the two of them. He had actually thought they may have ended up together at the rate they had been previously going, but now...

Back to square one, he guessed.

Oh well. Alfred shoved his glasses up the bridge of his nose, and sighed, filling in his homework. Why couldn't he get into Arthur's head that THEY WERE NOT THE SAME PEOPLE AS THEY WERE. Or Alfred thought so. He wanted to hug him every day and make him feel better (not that he didn't already do that, though he really never said why he was doing it to Arthur, he wasn't an idiot), since the Eighth grader seemed so lonely all the time.

He finished the paper with a final flourish, signing his name to the paper (titled "Why Whales Are As Good As People, Or Maybe Even Better", his essay for English) and stuffing it into his binder. He stood up and flew out of the room, hoping to see Arthur, Matthew, or maybe Kiku. And he didn't see anybody.

Until he came across Ivan standing in the hallway clearly intimidating poor Toris, Eduard, and Raivis, though the Russian boy looked more cheerful than actually scary, but Alfred saw the trio's terrified expressions and ran to where they were.

"Yo! Commie! Leave those three alone!" Alfred shouted, his face paling when he saw Ivan look at him, muttering 'kol kol kol kol' under his breath at the sight of Alfred.

"Greetings, comrade. There is no need to be angry, we are just chatting together, da?" Ivan said, smiling slightly, though he held a threatening looking... water pipe?

Alfred grinned nervously, running a hand through his hair and suddenly remembering he was just a skinny twelve year old, saying, "Hey, dude, can't we just like leave those three alone? I actually sort of need help with some... homework from them. I know Eduard is one of the best techies I know and Toris is pretty smart, and Raivis... well, he is a cinnamon roll, so he is just nice to have around, and he doesn't come around much, considering he IS a nine year old and doesn't go to this school. So, if you don't mind me borrowing them... And I believe I saw Yao hanging around down that hall," Alfred said quickly, and watching as Ivan smiled widely at him.

"Chu is nearby! Goodbye friends, I must go speak with Chu!" Ivan said happily, disappearing quickly to find his boyfriend.

Alfred turned to the Baltics, grinning. "Yo, dudes! Now, if you wanna leave before the Commie comes by again, let's run away, alright?" Alfred led them back to his room, where he invited them to sit on his bed, them all looking nervous.

Alfred smiled at Raivis. "Um, not to be rude or anything, but what are you doing here, kid? Shouldn't you be at home or something?"

"I-I came b-because my parents left, just disappeared suddenly. I-I didn't know what else to do, so I came here to see Toris and Eduard. Th-they said that their parents hadn't been answering their emails lately either, and... th-they said I could just visit for a while."

Alfred stared at the three of them. "Are you serious? Your parents are fricking missing? Do you have any idea of what happened?"

Eduard shook his head, "No. We really haven't really got a clue. We thought maybe... it was because we are countries. I mean, as countries we cannot have parents, can we?"

Alfred stared. Their parents... gone? And they weren't saying anything, not reacting in any way of terror of what that meant. But, then again, he knew Toris wasn't close to his parents, having talked to him a while ago in one of his classes, but what about the others?

"Um, why is this not bothering any of you?" Alfred asked.

Toris smiled a pained smile, "It is, trust me, but when your parents are practically abusive... it doesn't bother you as much as it should when they leave for a while."

"Alright. I think the coast is clear now, you guys can probably go," Alfred said, smiling weakly as they stood up and left. And then the cogs started working in his head. "Oh no... if their parents are gone..." Alfred grabbed his laptop, and typed up an email to his parents, hitting send. If they answered in the next day, he had nothing to worry about. If not...

Alfred groaned. Please let everything be okay, please, please, please. If it was, he could go back to trying to help Arthur, but if not, then he honestly didn't know what he would do.

* * *

Lovino walked up to Antonio in the hallway and allowed the taller boy to wrap his arms around his shoulders and kiss the top of his head gently. "Aww, my Lovi is so cuuutttteee," the tomato bastard cooed.

Lovino pushed away from him and glared up at the Spaniard. "I am not "your" Lovi, and don't call me Lovi in the first place for fucks sake," he ordered, but Antonio just laughed and rubbed Lovino's head, and Lovino tensed as the bastard's fingers came dangerously close to his hair curl. He jerked away, cursing some more, "Goddammit, leave my fucking hair alone or I will kick your ass!"

Antonio tilted his head, his green eyes shining in confusion. "But what about that cute hair thing you have? Why don't you just smooth it down?" And Antonio reached out and, furrowing his eyebrows in concentration, tried to smooth down the odd hair.

Lovino's eyes widened and his face turned bright red and he shoved Antonio into the wall before whipping around and running back to their room, collapsing onto his bed, gasping for breath. He just lay there for a few minutes until he had calmed down enough to get up and find Antonio to probably yell at him.

As he left the room he saw Alfred practically running to him. "What do you want?" He asked when the American stopped in front of him.

"Have you or Feliciano talked to your Grandfather lately?" Alfred demanded.

This caught Lovino by surprise, and he racked his brain to try to remember the last time they had spoken.

"Um, not since a few weeks ago at New Year's. Why the hell are you asking?" Lovino demanded.

Alfred looked down at him, his eyes shining more than usual behind his glasses. "I-I think that our guardians have disappeared," he said softly.

Lovino stared at him for a moment before he began shaking his head, "No, no, there is no way that they disappeared. My grandpa isn't the best at staying in contact, that's all. Maybe your parents are just busy," he tried desperately, forgetting to curse as usual.

Alfred frowned, "I talked to the Baltics, and their parents have disappeared too. I don't know what to do. How am I supposed to deal without my parents? And what about school and food and... And my family is gone, dammit, and what am I supposed to do without them?" He looked like he was going to start crying, so Lovino slapped him.

"Snap out of it, asshole. Maybe this was supposed to happen, I mean how do nations have parents anyways? Maybe we should go to the leaders of our countries and they can help us... I don't know, but there is something we can do, I know it."

Alfred still looked like he would burst into tears any minute asked, "But how will Feliciano deal with this? He has enough anxiety anyways, but without your grandpa..."

Lovino felt a crushing pressure and knew he was probably going to break down any minute. "I can help him, and the potato bastard can too. You should go tell the others, but before you do, why-why did you come to me first?"

Alfred shrugged, "I don't know. Maybe because of how in the industrial revolution Romano came to America for help, and that actually meant something to me. I don't know." The American turned around, beginning to walk down the hall, but looking over his shoulder to say quickly, "I... I hope you turn out alright, and if you ever need anything... come to me, since I want to be a hero, or go to Antonio since he will probably always be there for you, and I must admit I am jealous of that," and Alfred (who was very out of character, in Lovino's opinion), walked away, probably to inform another one of his friends.

Lovino walked in the opposite direction, after a minute, wanting to speak to Antonio before going to Feli to break the news to him.

 **A/N: This problem occurred to me a while ago, because it would be a problem if they could be countries and still have regular parents, so this falls under the huge magic spell that England cast, that their parents disappear off the face of the Earth (is it seriously bad that my first thought was 'oh yessss I can now murder characters without it seeming uncalled for'?). This will not be a huge problem for most of them, as they all have very poor relationships with their parents/guardians, the exceptions being Alfred, Feliciano, and Antonio (though Antonio will actually understand why they disappeared and will not be very torn apart by it, having dealt with a ton of sadness as Spain, but it will CRUSH poor little Feli, and lead to some serious problems for his psyche).**

 **Also, Alfred being convinced that they are not actually the exact same people as when they were nations and making a point of referring to them differently is a very large part, especially since he is the only one who really believes it.**

 **That's pretty much it, and I would love for people to comment and give me any advice, and I will try to use it, and I will try to update again some time soon!**


	20. Chapter 20

**A/N: I am so sorry for taking forever on this.**

 **And it is only a thousand word half chapter, too.**

 **But it is Labor Day weekend which means I get three days off of school, so I will probably be able to write a much better chapter to follow this one up.**

 **Also, I am so sorry for what happens with Feliciano in this chapter, but I have noticed I enjoy being cruel towards him, Gilbert, and Francis.**

 **Quick reminder that I do not happen to own Hetalia.**

Feliciano had stopped.

Completely and utterly stopped.

He could not function anymore, not after... everything.

Bullies.

His grandfather disappearing.

Not to mention the never ending shock of being a country.

None of it was good. He had tried so incredibly hard to hold out.

* * *

But Feliciano wasn't very strong. And he practically collapsed when it happened. When he gave up. Not like he died. But like. He didn't care?

He had decided to sleep because he seriously preferred dreaming to being awake. Because asleep he didn't have to deal with his life.

The day he had learned about his grandfather's disappearance he cried for hours, Ludwig comforting him first, and then eventually Lovino came, took one look at the couple, promptly kicked Ludwig out of his own room, and then hugged his younger brother, much to Feliciano's appreciation of the effort, though it didn't make him feel much better.

The following day Feli had dragged himself through a day of school, only to find a crushing reality when he was done for the day.

Every trouble he had as a country, every thing that bothered him now, crashed down on him all at once. He had been able to ignore everyone and everything that had gone horribly wrong in her life, however...

Once he had gotten reborn as a kid or whatever it had not done well for his emotional strength when he became an over emotional twelve year old and got stuck with both those historical problems and now his person life problems.

The next day he didn't move from his bed and Ludwig didn't try to make him leave, even though normally he had to pick the small Italian up and drag him to the first class. And maybe the second.

But Ludwig was really good at understanding that he didn't want to do anything. Maybe the screaming and sobbing helped in convincing Ludwig that Feliciano was not ready to do anything once he got over the newest blow to his plummeting lifestyle.

He didn't move all day, only hiding under his Italian flag covers (it had seemed cool at the time, but now it was cruelly ironic) and sobbing.

And that was all he did the next day, and the next day, only moving to pee or get water.

Until apparently Ludwig was done with his wallowing.

And he didn't JUST make him get up. He made Feli's closest to parental figures from when he was a very small country be the ones to get him up. Which happened to be Elizabeta and Roderich.

Elizabeta marched into his room on the third day, with Roderich following behind, looking continually bored and aristocratic. Feliciano burrowed deeper into his covers, not wanting to deal with anything, because then he would acknowledge that his grandfather was...

"Hey, hey Feli? We are all really worried about you, and can you please come eat something? Maybe pasta?" Feliciano heard Elizabeta's voice whisper and felt her pat his back.

He shifted, and, for the first time in his life he said, "No I don't want any pasta."

He heard a girly gasp which he assumed was from Roderich.

"Feliciano, this isn't at all like you, you being sad, or not wanting pasta, any of it, it isn't like you. You need to bounce back," Roderich said to him.

Feliciano sat up and saw them both staring at him. He shook his head, and would have started crying again if he wasn't completely dry of tears. "I can't do this. I can't do any of this. I couldn't really deal with it just as a kid, but now as a country? I just... And my grandfather... And everyone... I just can't do it."

Elizabeta sat next to him and pulled his head onto her shoulder, "But everyone needs you Feli... you are Italy."

"No," Feliciano whispered, curling against her, "Lovino is also Italy. And he actually has the capital on his side. He doesn't need me."

"He does really need you. Everyone does. You hold us together," Roderich said, much more gently than usual.

Feliciano just started sobbing, while the other two hugged him.

Ludwig walked awkwardly into the room before smiling and running off, making Feliciano briefly wonder what he was doing.

Mere minutes later he heard a much louder than normal sound of footsteps coming down the hall.

Then through the door came a crowd of all of his friends, Alfred, who looked sadder than normal, and more serious, Matthew, Gilbert, Lovino, who immediately declared "I was worried about you, damn idiot", Antonio, Francis, Kiku, Arthur, and finally Ludwig, all filing into Feli's room and standing around his bed, all giving him a group hug.

Feliciano smiled at them, trying to hide that he still wasn't feeling very well, when finally Matthew dragged him out from the group of people all talking at once and said quietly, "Hey, I know you probably aren't feeling completely better, eh? Well I kind of... know a good psychologist that can help you out. I have sort of noticed you have... anxiety or depression. And I have anxiety, and think it might help, okay?"

Feliciano hugged him and made a vague attempt at smiling. "Ve~ okay, grazie for the advice! I think I will and can't wait until I get back to... feeling normal," he turned to the rest of the group and said, pulling at his dirty pajamas, "And I am very hungry, so if we could go get pasta or pizza after I shower that would be fun! So, just give me about half an hour, okay guys?"

All of his friends left, and Feliciano began cleaning himself off, and making a. Promise to himself to ask Matthew about the psychologist or doctor or whoever it was.

And he hoped he would stop feeling horrible soon.

 **A/N: I am currently infected with writers block, and therfore stuck with plot on what I want to happen next.**

 **So, please comment what you would think would be a good plot idea, or just comment on the story in general, with reviews or advice or anything!**


	21. Chapter 21

**A/N: So, I'm back~**

 **Several people have pointed out we haven't seen our favorite British tsundere in a while, and he does seem to be pretty important to the story, so, I have him in this chapter where something happens (no spoilers, you will find out in a few minutes).**

 **I still do not own Hetalia (or do I and this is just some new Canon things hidden on a fanfiction website. Okay, that isn't true. But it is the major thing I question when I read people's fanfiction).**

Matthew smiled when he noticed that Feliciano was feeling better, nearly two months after winter break. His smile stopped looking so false, and he started singing as he skipped down the hall, for the first time since... he had been bullied.

Everything seemed to be going so much better for everyone in general.

Since Matthew had rejected Ned (God, he felt so incredibly guilty for it, but he seriously didn't want to lie about who he actually liked because it would end up just hurting Ned even more) Gilbert had relaxed a bit, though he still was acting a little weird and edgy around Matthew, but he still was glad to be able to talk to him about nearly everything.

And he didn't want to tell Gilbert one thing specifically. And he decided to tell Alfred, because if he didn't tell someone, anyone he would explode.

He walked into Alfred's and Arthur's room and said, quietly, when he saw that his cousin was the only one there, "Hey, Alfred, I need to tell you something."

Alfred, though he had changed a lot this year so far, was still Alfred, and so, instead of listening to what Matthew was planning on staying, started talking rapidly, "Oh my gosh, I feel the same way, I need to tell you that there is something wrong with Artie, and I really like him, and everything was almost good, but then something happened and it's like beginning all over again with him, and it is annoying the hell out of me and I really want to take him to the Valentine's day dance in a few days and-"

"I am in love with Gilbert," Matthew blurted and slapped his hand over his own mouth in shock.

"Wait," Alfred froze in his pacing around the room. "Who?"

Matthew steeled himself. Too late to turn back. "Gilbert. Gilbert Beilschmidt. I believe that you guys have met once or twice," he said, trying to lighten the mood. It was useless, though, he could tell from the expression on Alfred's face he was not going to take it well.

Alfred slammed his head into a wall. "Why. In the name of everything. Did. You fall. In. Love. With that. In the best of terms, asshole. And, God fucking dammit, why did you fall in love now of all the shitty times in our lives?"

"I-I don't know, it just happened to happen that way," Matthew squeaked, terrified. Alfred never cursed like this, the worst he ever normally said was 'god' and 'hell'. And Alfred was clearly angry.

Alfred snarled, "You don't know?! You don't know why you chose now, when our lives are so fucked up, to fall in love with Gilbert?! The dudes one of my closest friends, but why him?! He will... And after my parents died, while I am having my own relationship problems, you have to go and be selfish with your own goddamn problems!"

Matthew felt his temper flare. "You can't seriously call me selfish! You and your 'hero complex'! The moment I say I have a problem you flip out and call me selfish! Who is really the selfish one? Tell me, who?"

Alfred glared readily back. "I don't know. Maybe I am. But you can be damn selfish right back. And... now..." his glare splintered into a defeated look, "you are going to leave me behind for Gilbert, or whoever you fall in love with. And then I will be alone. I loved it so much when you came and lived with me after your parents died. And... I don't want you to forget about me."

Matthew hugged him, his flash of anger dissolving. "Are you really stupid enough not to realise that I am your family, and you are mine? We will literally never be able to get rid of each other."

Alfred smiled after a moment, then laughed, and said, "Alright, that's fair. So, I want to know your reasoning behind liking Gilbert, and tell me if you want any help in talking you up to him."

And the excited American dragged Matthew over to his bed and had the two sit on his American flag bed, grabbing his soft plush whale that Kiku had given to him a few years back, and that he had declared his 'best friend', besides his other stuffed animal, Tony, and still hugged both of them when he slept, though he never would admit it to anyone besides Matthew. "So. Start talking."

"Well... his hair is incredible and white and matches snow... his eyes are really cool and red... And he is really nice and protective... And he is really good at keeping the room clean... And his taste in music is perfect... And it's really cute when he is with Gilibird, and how he refuses to eat food that has a face... And he is cool... I don't know, everything about him is great," Matthew smiled as he spoke.

Alfred hugged him. "I understand. And I am glad for you."

Matthew smiled softly, "Now, I want to hear all of your problems, and maybe I can help you with the Arthur Situation."

* * *

Arthur shoved some of his blond hair out of his face.

His hair was starting to get a bit too long for his comfort. Now it looked stupid and punk like when he was England. Now he pretty much was the exact same as himself before the spell. God, why had he been such an idiot? He had been... what, twenty three? Twenty two? He had thought that would be old enough not to need to be so stupid.

And now he needed to figure out how to tell his friends. Or not tell them. Either way worked. He slammed his head against his desk.

He felt so incredibly alone right now, and stressed. Alfred would hate him when he found out, that was certain. It would be worse than when he had raised the tea taxes. He didn't understand why it was such a big deal for him to raise those taxes. America didn't even like tea.

"Yo, Artie!" Speaking of the idiot, Arthur cursed, his head still resting against the smooth wood. He felt footsteps through the floor and then a hand against his back, "Hey, are you okay?" Arthur could picture those blue puppy dog eyes looking at him in concern through glasses. "So... I was thinking... you know today is Valentine's Day?" Arthur raised his head up.

"What? What do you mean by that?" Arthur honestly had not realized it was Valentine's Day.

Alfred smiled and Arthur's heart fluttered. He slammed his hand over his chest, as if that could make it stop. Fucking hormones. "Well you have been so stressed lately maybe you could come to the dance tonight with me. The seventh through ninth grade one is tonight and the older three grades are tomorrow, so all of our friends would be there and it could turn out really fun."

"I kind of am busy. You should be too, we have a lot of school work," Arthur said sharply. He really didn't want to deal with Alfred right now.

Alfred pouted, "Artie, come on, everyone is going. And," he spoke in a hushed voice, "I need your help. Mattie wants to get Gil to like him."

"Well, that should be easy enough," Arthur laughed dryly, "the albino is already head over heels in love with him. Not that I blame him."

Alfred tilted his head, supporting the puppy look even more, "Didn't realize it. And what do you mean you can't blame him?"

Arthur smirked. Might as well see if Alfred is jealous, and this is a pretty good distraction from stressing out. "Well, Matthew is obviously very cute. His hair, well, it's even better than the frog's, and he has really large cute eyes, and he actually is incredibly smart, and the polar bear thing is surprisingly endearing, so yeah, I can see why he could be desirable."

"Yeah, well you had better leave my cousin alone," Alfred said, a frown becoming definite.

Arthur laughed at him, "No, he isn't my type of person by any measure. So, if you wouldn't mind giving me some space, I am going to get ready for the dance that starts when?"

"Five. We are eating dinner at five, then going to the dance at seven. So, you have like an hour. And don't worry, I am heading to Mattie to get ready," Alfred said, starting off angry until the end of the sentence, then hugged Arthur and ran from the room.

When Arthur got to dinner, he learned they were having pizza. He was angry that they forgot how well the last dance had turned out.

But after a while he relaxed. And because of that, he actually was able to enjoy himself, and talk to Alfred pretty much the whole time.

However, part way through the dance, Kiku grabbed his arm and dragged him to a corner. "Er, Kiku, what are you doing?"

"What has been wrong, Arthur-san? You have been on edge until now? What is wrong?" Kiku asked.

Arthur thought briefly for a moment, before deciding that Kiku would be the least likely one to get angry at him for what he did, so he decided to trust him. "It's my fault that we are this way. That we are kids. It's my fault."

Kiku blinked in shock. Well, Arthur didn't know if you could blink shock, but he knew that if you could blink in shock, Kiku just did. "I thought it was something about Alfred-san. But this seems more important. I want to know more on this, but I have to go over to Heracles-san," Kiku turned away, but glanced back briefly back just to say, "And you should tell the others."

Arthur watched him go back to his tall boyfriend, before deciding just to pretend that didn't happen and deal with it later. He was pretty sure he saw Alfred holding a plate of cake in each hand, and he assumed one was for him. He might as well enjoy himself before Alfred started hating him.

Arthur marched back over to the American and Alfred hugged him, saying, "I am getting exhausted, so I might be heading to bed soon, but first I have cake!"

Arthur hugged him for a minute longer, "Don't hate me," he whispered, then pulled away. "Thanks, idiot," he grabbed the cake and immediately ate a bite, making Alfred laugh.

Arthur smiled back up at him, but he still couldn't help thinking, 'Please don't hate me. Please. It would kill me if all of you ended up hating me for what I did.'

 **A/N: Aw, poor Arthur. They won't hate you, probably. Haven't really planned that far ahead.**

 **Anyways, I noticed some characters haven't shown up much in these last few chapters, but they will definitely show up soon, hopefully in the next chapter.**

 **Also this will not end up with Kiku and Arthur together, because that might end up being a question after this chapter, but no! I am Giripan and UsUk trash, and don't forget it. I have even started a Giripan story you guys should check out!**

 **I took down my poll, because this is obviously heading toward PruCan, but I have started a new one where you vote on your favorite character in this story (personality, role in plot, character development, etc that is your favorite overall for one character), and please vote on that.**

 **And, finally, thank you everyone who reviewed, and please review, send suggestions, plot ideas, anything is good!**


	22. Chapter 22

**A/N: Hi guys! I've been really busy lately, with school and job and cheerleading (yes, I am a cheerleader, but before anyone says anything on the stereotype, I AM THE OPPOSITE OF THAT! I am the nerdiest, shyest cheerleader in the world! And I don't like sports! Like, imagine Nyotalia Canada and you have me!) So I couldn't update, and I am sorry! But here, I finally made one.**

 **And I wrote this while listening to music, so, though that makes writing a lot faster I accidentally started writing the lyrics a few times, so if you see the lyrics to American Beauty/American Psycho or Na Na Na or something, you know why.**

 **I have not yet gained possession of Hetalia.**

Kiku was confused on a number of things:

1) the fact that everything was Arthur's fault somehow (though he had yet to get to interrogating him, even if the Valentine's Day dance had been a few weeks ago)

2) why Heracles hated Sadik so much and why the two constantly fought for this affection even though Kiku repeatedly said he was dating Heracles

3) why Vash Zwingli was so violent when all he had ever heard about Switzerland was mountains and goats and dancing and yodeling

The final question had just barely come to mind when Vash had very angrily (though Kiku got the sense that this was not an anger specifically directed at him) told him that he should stand up for himself and not be such a pushover for louder people, for example Alfred.

This had come up during one of their conversations, since Kiku was assigned to sit next to the prickly Vash. Kiku honestly had no idea how he got so many weird friends, though this is not what he really wanted to spend his time pondering.

His conversations with Vash were always vaguely surreal, mostly because they had very little in common with each other, and Kiku felt mostly compelled to speak with him as Switzerland was geographically close to his closest friends (meaning Ludwig and Feliciano).

Kiku had raised his hand timidly raised his hand, hoping the teacher would see, and, when the teacher had ignored him and he had lowered his hand, Vash said to him, "Why do you never stand up for yourself? You really should if you want to ever do anything. How do you think Japan's government leaders would react if a small timid kid went up to the one day and just said 'I wanted to ask... if maybe I could be recognized as the personification of this country?'"

"Erm, I suppose not very well," Kiku murmured, pulling at the sleeve of his jacket and turning red at how likely that that would be something he would actually do.

Vash smirked briefly when he saw that his point was getting across and agreed, "Damn right it wouldn't, and you need to work on that if it ever happens."

Kiku smiled slightly, and then decided to change the subject. "Is your younger sister still staying here Vash-san?"

"Yes, since my parents disappeared. The stupid principal isn't even dealing with a lot of student's parents disappearing all at once, he is just letting Lily stay with me and Roderich," Vash's eyes lit up for a moment at the mention of his cute nine year old adopted sister, but darkened again when he mentioned the principal.

Kiku nodded, thinking a moment of his other siblings, before saying, "Maybe he just wishes to avoid creating conspiracy theories. It would not be very good if an international school got that kind of attention, so they cannot do anything."

"It's so idiotic, though," Vash muttered.

The class ended, and, for the sake of being mildly friendly (and because Lily was insanely adorable) Kiku asked Vash if maybe he could visit his sister.

Vash was very very overprotective, and anti-social and prickly enough to earn himself the name "Hedgehog", but for some reason that couldn't quite be explained he did not mind Kiku as much as he did everyone else, so, the answer was a hesitant yes.

At the end of the class, Vash marched out the door quickly, Kiku going after him in a rush, picking up papers and stuffing them into his bag haphazardly, making a mental note to organize those later. Vash walked speedily to his room, skillfully dodging past the many students, Kiku trying to stay less than twenty feet away. Finally, when Kiku was beginning to think maybe he had accidentally lost the Swiss, and then he saw Vash had stopped in front of a door, devoid of posters that students tend to enjoy putting up, though it made sense, now that Kiku thought more on it, that it would be Vash and Roderich who did not want to individualize their door.

Vash pushed open the door, and Kiku barely had any time to look into the room before a younger girl walked out the door and up to Vash, saying, "Hello, big brother. How are you? Do you have any homework? I made a picnic for us, if you would like to have one with me," in the cutest voice, big sea green eyes looking up at Vash, her small hands fiddling with the ends of her shoulder length hair. Then the girl noticed Kiku, and she smiled shyly at him, "Hello. Are you a friend of big brother's?"

"Yes," Kiku said, returning her small smile.

Vash shook his head, "Not really, more of an acquaintance if anything. Now, let us in Lily. What have you been doing all day? Please tell me the online classes are still going well."

"Alright. I did my online classes, and then Mr. Roderich came during his break and should me how to play on his piano a little," Lily said, backing into the room and pulling out a chair from the small table to sit on, carefully adjusting her maroon dress.

Kiku walked into the room after Vash, sitting beside beside him on his bed. "So, do you want to do something?" Kiku asked politely.

Vash looked at Lily, hesitating before asking, "Lily, would you mind playing something for us? I would like to know how bad of a teacher Roderich is."

"Alright, I can play a few songs," Lily said, and the nine year old walked over to the piano at Roderich's side of the room.

As she began playing something struck Kiku, and he turned to Vash, whispering, "Vash-san, since you are... does that mean Lily is, too?"

Even though Kiku hadn't said it completely, Vash understood what he was saying. "Yes. She is Lichtenstein," he said, and Kiku looked at the little girl, playing timidly on the finding it difficult to believe that she was hundreds of years old.

* * *

Ludwig wanted to help Feliciano feel normal again as soon as possible.

But why did it have to be so damn hard? Feli seemed to go out of his way to make it impossible for Ludwig to know anything about his therapy, and every time Ludwig tried to ask how he was, Feliciano would smile and shower him with hugs and kisses, but not answering the question, just thanking him for asking it. Feliciano did seem happier then he had been in months, but it was making Ludwig nervous that he was spending more and more time with Alfred and Matthew. The three would be seen running all over the school, or at least Feliciano and Alfred would, with Matthew jogging after them, and then every couple days Feliciano and Matthew would walk away from the rest of their squad and talk for some time.

Finally, almost three months after winter break, Ludwig finally decided to ask Feliciano to be somewhat inclusive towards him on the Italian's psychological health. He waited patiently for Feli to get back to their room, and, when he got there, he asked him, "Vould you be okay if I vant to help you vith your depression?"

Feliciano looked confused, then grinned up at his boyfriend and nodded, "Ve~ if you really want to! I just thought it would bother you, and then you would want to break up with me, and then I would be on my own..." his face fell slightly, his strange hair curl drooping a little.

"No, I really really vant to help," Ludwig assured him, running his hand through his slicked blond hair, "I like being organized and in charge, remember?"

Feliciano nodded, "Ve~ I forgot! But I think I have an idea of how you can help!" And he reached into his cat backpack, shuffling through the bag, ruining the papers Ludwig had organized so carefully for him, finally pulling out a pill bottle. Ludwig tilted his head, wondering what it was for, but suddenly realizing it when Feliciano bowed his head, ashamed for some reason. "I- they- th-the therapist, he gave me antidepressants, to help me feel normal, but I have such a bad memory that I sometimes forget, and-" he shivered, looking scared, then recovering just as fast, "I want to know if you could help me remember to take them."

Ludwig walked over to Feliciano's bed, sitting next to him, and the awkward thirteen year old put his arm around his shoulder and tried to comfort him. "Of course I vill help you remember. And vhy do you feel so bad about taking zhem?"

"I feel bad that I can't feel okay by myself. And I'm scared it will change me," Feli whispered.

Ludwig shook his head, arm tightening around the smaller boy's shoulders, "It doesn't mean anything about your strength zhat you need help. And it von't change you, just make you feel more yourself."

"I hope so."

The pair sat for a few minutes in silence, until Ludwig be same uncomfortable and stood up, then murmured, "Ummm, we might vant to head to dinner now. And Gil vants to bounce some more of his 'awesome ideas' of getting poor Matthew to fall in love with him."

Feliciano grinned at something mysteriously, and then stood up and skipped over to his boyfriend, confusing Ludwig. "Ve~ Matthew talks to me a lot! He is very nice! And he told me a secret~!"

"Vhat are you even talking about," Ludwig shook his head.

Feliciano just smiled more and grabbed Ludwig, dragging him out the door, "Oh, nothing important~!"

 **A/N: air try to keep things as canonically accurate as possible, so I have some explaining to do.**

 **In the official thing, it does mention Italy takes medication for some psychological thing, and I believe that Italy could be depressed, so please do not blame me for making Feli that way.**

 **And, I know Arthur is a huge character in this, but I did not, even from the beginning, want to make this a one main character story, so he will just be a major person every other chapter -ish. But, if you really want to see something happen, just comment the suggestion and I will try to carry it out.**

 **Please vote on the poll that should be on my profile!**

 **Finally, thank you for reading this, and if you like it you could check out my other story, or just follow and review this one!**


	23. Chapter 23

**A/N: Hi guys, sorry for a the long wait and stupidly short chapter.**

 **I don't really have all that much to say, but I will talk a little more at the end.**

 **I don't own Hetalia.**

Arthur glared down at Kiku, not wanting to show how on edge he was.

"Arthur-san, you know you should tell them what happened," Kiku politely began.

Arthur shook his head, "I know I should, Kiku, but I just don't want everyone to hate me, and then it would be like how it was when we were older."

"Not necessarily, I do not hate you," Kiku said, trying to sound soothing.

Arthur's frown only appeared to deepen, and he furrowed his eyebrows in thought. "No, you are different. You are not as... emotional and uptight as, for example, Gilbert."

"I suppose that is true," Kiku agreed, a smile ghosting his lips, then remembered to stay serious. "But no one will hate you, I am certain. We all trust you very much."

"I'm not so sure," Arthur said, hanging his head sadly, "And I think telling this will ruin any semblance of trust you have for me. But I guess I will think more on it, and then decide what to do."

Kiku sighed, and excepted that this was the best he could do at the moment, then said goodbye to the British boy, and left him alone in the bedroom which he had entered to try to sway Arthur's opinion only ten minutes earlier.

Arthur sat down on his bed and felt like he was going to cry, he was so torn up. School was hard, he still was so confused about Alfred, and then he did not want to keep lying to his friends. But what could he do to make sure he didn't lose any of the friendships that he had worked so hard to create?

Ludwig would probably punch him.

Alfred would probably kick him out of the room.

Antonio would wish to fight him, but might be too scared to after the loss of his armada (this made Arthur smile for a moment at the memory of destroying those ships).

Lovino would yell at him.

Feliciano would have another break down.

Francis would pretend not to care, but would act very cold.

Matthew would be very disappointed.

And Gilbert would probably be angry, but pretend to laugh it off.

And then Arthur would be on his own. Just like he had so many times before.

This made his eyes start to water and knew that he couldn't do it. He would lose the trust of all of his friends, and he couldn't do that.

He lay on his bed for a few minutes, thinking and crying and feeling awful. Then Arthur heard the door open and shut. Oh god, he really couldn't deal with seeing Alfred right then. Arthur prayed that he wouldn't say anything and would just ignore him.

Please.

"Hey Artie. Wait, Artie, what's wrong?"

Fuck.

Fuck his life.

Arthur muttered, "Go away Alfred," and shifted around to make sure Alfred couldn't see his face.

He heard Alfred walk over to him, and Arthur chose to ignore it.

He suddenly felt the bed move next to him and suddenly someone was pressing against him, and then felt arms wrap around him.

Arthur hissed, "What are you doing, Alfred?"

"What's wrong?" Alfred said, resting his head on Arthur's shoulder, their faces side by side.

Arthur took a deep breath and said, "Nothing, idiot."

"I don't believe you~" Alfred sang.

Arthur ground his teeth together in frustration and moved his head to look at the American, whose face was centimeters away from his, "I am serious, it is-"

Alfred cut him off with a kiss, sending electricity up and down Arthur's spine and his eyes to widen in surprise.

After a moment Arthur pulled away and looked at Alfred, who sat up and stretched. "Well, we got that out of the way!" Alfred said, smiling brightly.

Arthur looked at Alfred, also sitting up, "Um, what was that for?"

"Well, I wanted to make you feel better. And I hAve wanted to do that for a while, so it's a win-win situation," Alfred said, grinning.

Arthur half smiled, then looked away, and said, "Thank you, I suppose."

"Any time!" Alfred replied, "Now, I have to go do homework with Mattie, though I really want to continue this. See you later? Bye."

And just like that, the American was gone.

Arthur leaned against his pillows, his joy quickly seeping away. The American's actions had not achieved what they had been intended to do. He felt worse, and now he agreed with Kiku on something. He couldn't hide this anymore. He didn't want to hurt Alfred too much, so he had to tell him as soon as possible. Before it would ruin him more than it already would, as the American would definitely hate him.

 **A/N: Awww, poor Artie.**

 **Sorry for the short chapter, I have kind of been having writer's block lately, but trust me, next week there will be a much longer chapter.**

 **Please review, favorite, or follow! And I love writing suggestions!**


	24. Chapter 24

**A/N: Early chapter this week!**

 **Hope you like it, and I don't have much to say, so please read!**

 **Still don't own Hetalia, but it is a work in progress.**

Lovino had been in a good mood for the past few weeks, as Feliciano seemed to be doing okay, and then, though he would never ever admit it and you had better not tell anyone you goddamn idiot, he was very happy with Antonio.

And he could almost always ignore the nagging issue of being the personification of the southern region of Italy.

But, you know, besides that, life was good, he guessed.

Then something occurred to him. And it was not a very good thing.

This is Lovino fucking Vargas we are talking about here.

So, obviously something was going to go wrong at some point. And, with how things were now, it was definitely going to be very soon.

And he was almost always right about this. The last time had been when his parents died and he had to live with his grandfather.

But, before all of Lovino's life lost a little more of it's delicate balance, he wanted to enjoy his last day before spring break to the fullest extent.

That morning it became obvious that Antonio had the same idea. Though not necessarily in the way Lovino wanted. However at the same time, it was even better than what Lovino had wanted.

He woke up to Antonio staring at him, in his oddly not very creepy way, and as soon as the Spaniard noticed that Lovino's eyes were looking back at him, they lit up and Antonio jumped on him, hitting his stomach and forcing Lovino to breath out a quick breath of air, before gasping, "Get the fuck off me, you goddamn tomato bastard."

Antonio fake pouted, leaning over and pressing his nose against Lovino's, and saying, "Awww, is my Lovi in a bad mood?"

"Yes, if you are here," was Lovino's quick reply, causing Antonio's frown to become more defined.

Antonio sat up, making it momentarily difficult to breath for Lovino yet again, and murmered, "Lo siento."

He quickly hopped off of Lovino's bed, and walked away, pulling off his pajama shirt and searching his dresser for a clean one.

Lovino sat up and watched him for a moment, before also standing up and walking up to Antonio and silently putting his arms around his stomach, Antonio swiftly turning around in surprise, the pair immediately hitting foreheads, and Lovino falling backwards. Antonio helped him up, Lovino cursing darkly, and then grinned.

"Why the hell are you so happy? You could have fucking killed me with a skull that thick," Lovino sourly muttered.

Antonio kissed him briefly, before pulling away and saying, "Maybe after classes we could have dinner? After all, this is the last time we will see each other in over a week, and I want to enjoy basking in your presence as much as possible."

"Of course you want to bask in my presence. Everyone does, and for some reason I let an asshole like you do it more than anyone else. I'll do it, however, as I have given up trying to figure out why I enjoy spending time with you," Lovino said, a brief smile passing over his face.

Then they both got ready, Antonio finishing several minutes before Lovino and wondering loudly what was wrong with a t-shirt and baggy jeans and why Lovino didn't realize he would still look very sexy simply wearing a trash bag, and maybe he should try it sometime.

Then they left for class, Antonio walking Lovino to his, though he had to go all the way to the eighth grade area of the school and then back to the other side.

And Lovino wondered if maybe his intuition was wrong, that maybe it wouldn't be today something bad happened. And then lunch happened.

At lunch, Antonio flirted with him and he pretended to be annoyed as usual, until Arthur walked up, and Lovino automatically could tell something was wrong. Arthur's skin was paler than usual, his hair looking slightly greasy in the bright lights of the cafeteria, and his clothing was a little wrinkled.

Every sound faded into blurring background when Arthur stood up and cleared his throat, everyone looking at him, Alfred putting his hand on Arthur's shaking one. The sound of Ivan chasing Yao was gone, Matthias bothering Lukas had disappeared, Antonio had even stopped talking, when Arthur stood up.

Arthur opened his mouth, and no noise came out, until he took a deep breath and tried again, "I- I have something to tell all of you..." he began awkwardly, and Lovino's stomach plummeted. He didn't want to know what Arthur was going to say, but he still heard his next words.

* * *

Matthew was confused. What was Arthur going to say? Maybe it was about how Arthur and Alfred had gotten together, though this meant that Matthew already knew it, since his cousin had ran into his bedroom two days ago saying (while Matthew quickly got dressed after the shower he had just taken) that he had finally, finally, kissed Arthur, and that Arthur hadn't freaked out, and Alfred probably would have gone into much more detail, honestly probably more than Matthew wanted to hear at the moment, if Gilbert hadn't walked in as well, and immediately started congratulating Alfred at finally getting with Arthur, and then Matthew had kicked them both out so he could finish putting on his shirt and brushing his teeth and getting ready to go get dinner.

But it really didn't seem like that was it. If it had been, then Arthur would probably, hopefully, be happy. But instead Arthur looked scared and shaky, and he was speaking very quickly. And then Arthur spoke again, so fast that Matthew had to take a moment to register it. "I was the one who made us die and be reborn as kids. It was my fault. I did a sort of spell, because I wanted to start over and you all hated me, so I killed us, and we were reincarnated, because I am a huge needy jackass."

Matthew stared blankly, then glanced at Alfred to gauge his reaction, since his tended to be very very obvious. Alfred had let go of Arthur's hand and was staring at him with a mix of confusion and anger, his eyebrows furrowed behind his glasses, and an expression that honestly scared Matthew a little.

Arthur looked around the table, seeing the other's faces, tears streaming down his cheeks, and Matthew took the opportunity to look around too, and saw only blank or angry expressions on all of his friends' faces. Apparently Arthur saw the same thing, because he stood up and ran away, Matthew still was able to hear his sobbing as he sprinted out of the cafeteria, over the noise of the other students. Alfred got up next, but it was obvious that it wasn't to comfort him, since his confusion had faded away and all there was now was dark anger. He walked slowly away, leaving everyone to look at each other.

Finally, Francis spoke, "Did- wow, did anyone expect this?"

"I- I knew about it," Kiku whispered looking down uncomfortably when everyone stared at him.

Ludwig stood up, and practically growled, "Vhat? And you didn't tell any of us?"

"Ar- Arthur-san had to do it on his own," Kiku whispered, and everyone glared at the poor little Japanese boy, who began shaking and hiding behind Heracles, who looked the most calm out of all of them. Though, now that Matthew thought about it, if Kiku had told anyone it would be his boyfriend, so he probably knew about it already.

Matthew decided that maybe this would be a good time to check on his cousin, and did not want to witness everyone yelling at poor Kiku, so he stood up and jogged out of the cafeteria. He decided that Alfred probably not gone to his room, as then there was a chance of Arthur being there, and ran to the only other place that he figured Alfred would go.

Once he got there, he saw Alfred staring darkly at the chemistry experiment he had been working on earlier that day. Matthew decided that it was not a good idea to have Alfred near any acidic material when he was in this mood. "A-Alfred? Are you alright?"

"Why the hell would I be?" Alfred glanced up for a moment, and Matthew saw his eyes shining with angry tears, "I mean, my recent boyfriend just told me that all of my problems this year were his fault. Why would I be mad about that?"

Matthew frowned, "Well, it wasn't really him, was it? It was England, not Arthur who did it."

"What's the fucking difference?" Alfred hissed.

Matthew was actually mildly pissed off at his cousin at this point. "What's the difference? What's the difference?! You told me that you were sure you are different from what you used to be. So isn't it the same with Arthur?! Hasn't he changed from what you remember?!"

"I don't know! I thought there was, but I don't know!" Alfred yelled, setting down his equipment carefully and stripping off his gloves after cleaning the chemicals carefully, even though he was angry.

Matthew frowned deeply. "Don't be such a hypocrite! Go talk to him if you want to fix it before he thinks you hate him forever!"

Alfred blinked, realizing that that was probably exactly what Arthur thought, and took off running to their room, Matthew chasing after him, struggling with Kumajiro in his arms. Once he caught up to Alfred he saw that the boy was standing in the room, staring blankly at a piece of paper. Matthew walked up to Alfred and put his arms around him, and Alfred whispered, "He left for spring break early, he will be back, but he says he is going to work on getting a different room, since he knows I hate him. I won't see him for over a week!" Alfred cried, turning around and letting Matthew hug him, who pursed his lips, hoping that Arthur would come back, more for his cousins sake more than his own.

 **A/N: GODDAMMIT ALFRED DON'T BE SUCH A HYPOCRITE.**

 **I always feel so bad for Artie, as I tend to ruin his life more than pretty much anyone else. Actually, it would be kind of nice if you would tell me who gets the worst of life, so please comment that!**

 **Besides that, I don't have anything to say, just please review or follow or even favorite if you really like it!**


	25. Reassurance that I'm not dead

Hi guys, I know I haven't added a new chapter in ages, but I want to explain that my life kind of got a little crazy, but I do 100% plan on finishing this. It might take a while, but trust me, in the next month I will post a new chapter for you, and I'm not even that close to being finished! I love you guys, and I'm sorry I haven't been very good about writing since school started.


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